Adventures in Monogamy!

Hello my friends -

2008-04-24T19:39:00.001-07:00

So today Scooter spouts off, for the second time, the name by which I refer to my honey, here on my Penny Blog. As in "Just because Marvin is cleaning up for you..." Wow.

What a fuck, huh?

And where does that leave me? Understandably bereft.

(Scoot, bereft mean very, very sad.).

I am bereft because I like my Penny Blog. In fact, there are times when I've loved it and times when I thought perhaps it had saved my life. But now I have to wish it farewell. Because try as I might I can not stomach the idea of giving Captain Jackass the slightest glimpse into my life, my mind, my heart, or my business. In fact, I'd rather stab myself in both eyes with forks. And that's some serious aversion.

(Scoot, aversion means that you really, really don't wanna.).

I just don't see any way around it and it sucks. Who knew that you could lose your personal thoughts in the divorce? (Judge "I award all your private thinking to Scooter in exchange for all of that trash you threw out that he wanted to keep and was always gonna get out of the garage some time next week." Penny "But, your Honor, those private thoughts were mine BEFORE we got married." Scooter's Attorney "Objection! Your Honor she just utilized a thought which you have already awarded the MY CLIENT! Objection!" Judge "Penny, I find you in contempt. Stop your personal thinking at once!'' Penny "But your honor!" Judge "Take her away Rusty. I am so sorry Captain Jackass, sometimes they just get so upset.")

Who the fuck knew?

Well, if I am going out I am going out with a BANG.

My whole life I have had this parentally imposed throttle restricter, instructing me that I had to be a good girl and that I am not allowed to have my own purely selfish feelings about anything. ANYTHING! Not a one. And I have always made excuses and Herculean

(Scoot, Herculean means really really strong)

efforts for the other person. For my mother, for my husband, for the Bartender. Everyone. And the truth is the only people on earth that deserve that kind of lee-way and deference are your children. So I quit. I quit trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, Scooter. I quit talking myself out of my feelings in an effort to make nice with you. I QUIT.

So, here you go:

I HATE YOU.

And your girl friend's ass is so freakin wide that by the time she's 40 you'll have to buy her two seats on the plane. Good luck with that.

Friends, I'll miss you. Be well.

A Message For Scooter

2008-04-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Scooter,

Just because this is a public site does not give you the right to poke your prying nose into it. You were a sneaky, lying jackass when we lived together and you are worse than that now. I hope that you have garnered some satisfaction from looking where you have no right to look. I am not ashamed of a single word I wrote here, including the words about you.

Did you read the post about how I hope someone KILLS me before I am ever such a fuck as to blame my child for something I did wrong? Did you read that one?

If you do not like the way in which I care take your shit, then get it out of my garage. How many years do you expect me to trip over and live around your piles of accumulated crap?

And please, for Christ's sake, don't come to my house when I am home if you can not refrain from your stupid leaking mouth comments, your ugly threatening postures and your stomping about in front of my children.

You sicken me.

Love,

Penny

Why Is My Brain Out To Get Me? or is it...

2008-04-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

Well Blog Monkeys and others...

I do not know who the others may be. I know there are few remaining interested cyber-friends. But I suppose that there is an entire new squadron of perusers out there. Peruse on, my friends... WELCOME!

Well, I begin, I am at the WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING ANYWAY??? stage of this relationship with My Marvin. I know this because my dreams tell me so. I have long passed the silliness of thinking that dreams mean anything cogent or FACTUAL, for christ's sake. but nevertheless I have them and they effect me on an emotional level. they are pure emotion couched in disjointed movie like pictures, poor stories designed to display and highlight the emotion. What emotion you ask? Anxiety, fear and suspicion. Yep. I am an evil emotion soup. At least when I am unconscious and my logical brain can not grasp and throttle the defective bits of me.

But dude, isn't that just the problem?

Take my "relationship" with the Bartender. ("Please!" rim-shot, polite laughter... Oh that Penny! What a card!) For example, let's examine that. You don't know, but sadly I do, how much effort I put into talking myself out of reasonable suspicions in favor of candy coated fantasies. WHY? Because at a fundamental level I am defective and I have been molded my entire life to be receptive to mental illness, selfishness and chaos. In fact, some part of me thinks that with out these things there is no love.

My rational brain can sort out the lies my emotional brain tells me.

Or so it would seem until you look at the Bartender. How many times did I experience a perfectly rational, reasonable suspicion - proved beyond a shred of a shadow of any doubt now - and DISMISS IT OUT OF HAND AS MY UNREASONABLE DEFECTIVE BRAIN GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY HAPPINESS? Do you see the conundrum?

How can I trust either assessment???

So I have resorted to looking for outside affirmation of the reasonableness of my thinking. and so far I have gotten resounding approval and that is very good news. Because kids, I gotta tell you...

I am happy happy happy with My Marvin. If I were 16 I would write sappy poetry endlessly and speak of nothing else. I would make the pact to die at the very same moment and god help anyone that risked questioning me. But I am not 16. I am 40. So I just have these stupid dreams and think these circular thoughts and wonder how one gets along in life if you can't even trust your own brain.

I am dating that guy that other men resent... for making them look bad

2008-02-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

So, Marvin and I went Roller Skating on Sunday. I capitalized that because it was a premiere event. Out of this experience came the following observations:

1. I want shiny skates with flashing wheels, preferably in white and pink and chrome.

2. Every single solitary woman in that place wishes she was me and either secretly, or right out loud, resents her unromantic stick-in-the-mud husband/boyfriend/lover for NOT being Marvin.

3. It is good to be on my end of that equation.

I suppose that I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s a rotten way to be but how can I over come that in just a few weeks? In the mean time, ladies, resent me all you want to. I plan to go skating again on Sunday.

If You're HAPPY and You Know It, Test For CLAP

2008-02-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

I recently went to my girly-doctor. I presented the visit this way:

“Well, I need what ever you have to get when you’ve been in a relationship with a man with questionable discretion and zero impulse control.”

She said “I see.” And the swabbing began. Gonorrhea, syphilis, Chlamydia, herpes, HIV, hepatitis (A and C, been vaccinated for B), HPV, and what other lovelies? The possibilities are endless I do not recall them all. And all are nauseating. I mean HOLY SHIT. Does anyone know what the scientific term for the fabled “clap” is? I need to ensure I’ve been appropriately examined for that business.

And what the hell do you do when you find out that something showed up? Do I even want to contemplate that???

So I sent Marvin off to get swabbed himself and he came home with a big bunch of condoms. They all say USE ME in big happy letters. Friendly letters. Maybe we should just pass them along to the Bartender in deference to his new girl.

How do I know about the new girl, you ask? Excellent question my friend, and I shall tell you. He mentioned her in the 3 am Valentine’s Day text message… as in “I know I am with someone else right now but I just think of you… blah blah blah… Valentine’s Day…blah blah ack choke (sorry I puked a little in my mouth)” Can you believe this shit???

I wanted to text him back with the words “Thank God you’ve contacted me on Valentine’s Day while your girl is sleeping. I would like to be a piece on the side. But first I HAVE TO MAKE SURE I HAVE SOME DREAD DISEASE TO PASS ON. After all, alls fair in love and casual sex. And she’s probably asking for it anyway.”

This has been a special report ~ I’M Bad Penny

Cyber-Cleaning and an Open Letter to The Bartender...

2008-02-04T17:46:00.000-08:00

I’m cleaning cyber house. Just a little bit. Some things I’ve written were useful for a bit but now it’s time to give them the old heave-ho. Sorta like what I did with the little books and misc. dust-collecting-crap that has been on my mantle since time immemorial… or at least since Scooter lived here. Here’s a glimpse at my week end –

Penny “Hey Marvin? Should I keep these little, tiny books?”

Marvin “Do you have a little, tiny book shelf?”

Penny “No.”

Marvin “Then no.”

Gosh. It’s just that simple!

So, cyber-cleaning. Here for you edification and to remind me should I ever suffer a brain injury and forget is an open letter to the Bartender (written in response to the nice things he has said after I told him I did not want to know him any more:

Dear Dr. Swing,

(Did I mention he signed his anonymous sex solicitations with this inventive moniker?)

I will start with my response to your nice messages. I am sad and lonely, I miss my family and there are many things I miss about you. Mainly I miss the life I really thought we could have together. I am not happy about any of this, I certainly am not dating. That said, I do not miss waking up alone in the middle of the night to wonder why you are not here. Now I just wake and remember. I do not miss being woken by your text message alert. I do not miss the porn. I do not miss adult friendfinder pop ups on my computer. I so not miss wondering who Stephanie, or Candy, or Julie or who-ever is. I do not miss your suspicion, interrogation, the fear that you would take something wrong and mistreat me for it. I do not miss having to choose between meeting my responsibilities at work and upsetting you. Having to choose between preparing for or paying attention to my job and patting and reassuring you. I do not miss the way you treated me the day I got my first in class ranking, the day I graduated, the day I took my bar, the day I got my bar results, the day I got my job. I do not miss the way you treated me at those times at all. Last year this time I made plans just for you, for your birthday. I picked a restaurant to buy you steak, took you to a hotel, paid for a massage cause you were stressed out. I do not miss that either. You were singularly ungrateful and angry even with this.

I do not miss going to pee while we were at the movies and being asked if I had found a signal for my phone.

I do not miss being informed that I am the most selfish person you know.

I do not miss being cornered naked and wet in the shower while you terrorized me for displeasing you, for failing to provide you with the correct answer to yet another interrogation.

I DO NOT MISS NOT SLEEPING.

This entire situation has been very difficult for me. Not only did I involve my children in relationships over which I have no control but I became important and bonded to a child over which I have no control. Your son loves me. I know I am important to him and to his sense of stability and safety. It is very, very frustrating to be subject to the phone call from his father where I am told to just get lost. (The phone call where you start by laughing with some girl and saying “I’ll be right there” is especially cruel) I will get over the hurt that causes me. I can never get over the hurt that causes your child.

The last time I saw him, I hugged him good bye and he clung to me. This is not because you told him to be my friend, to say hello, to be polite or whatever. He loves me because on the days when he was sick I held him. On days when he was sad I cheered him up. And at night I said “I love you little man” when I put him in his bed. I gave him a name he loves to call himself.

What’s more than this, is his love and longing for my girls. And they miss him. So I tossed three children into a blender and now I have to be responsible for the chaos we’ve caused them. All of this makes it harder to take it when you suggest that I just make arbitrary decisions. When you suggest that I am interested in some other person and so I dumped my entire life in the toilet, smashed the crap out of three children and turned your life upside down. Just cause I like someone else. To suspect that is paranoid and crazy. To accuse me of it and then behave as though it is true is insane. Yet here we are.

So what can I do? Seriously. I am a kind hearted person and I have cared very deeply for you, for your son and for our family. And I cry myself to sleep every single night. But I also must care for myself, and I must care for and protect my children. I love and adore your son’s mother. So no matter how much I may want to answer the phone or to express my sympathy for you, I can’t. Because until you DO something to repair the damage you have caused to the most important relationships in your life I can not trust you.

You are vicious when you are mad. And you dismiss this with the simple statement that you were angry so you lash out. You do not fight fair. I have tried to tell you that you bruise and wound me, even when you are only half serious. When you are truly serious you go for the throat. You do not hesitate. You pull out your biggest gun and you fire, point blank. And then we just bleed. It is a horrible use of the intimacy and knowledge you have gained from other’s care for you. And you do it on purpose.

Your boy’s mother tried to tell you how you’ve hurt her. You responded by threatening her relationship with her son and by informing her that you have recruited her own parents to assist you in doing it. This is something you just can not take back. You’ve done the same thing to me. You have threatened me with child protective services, you threaten to call Scooter and help him to hurt me. You call me a wrinkled up old bitch. You tell me to go to cougar bars, fuck greasy internet boys. You are hateful in your anger.

This is not normal and healthy. You should feel ashamed and wish only to some how fix what you’ve broken. But no matter how heartfelt the apology is, it is ALWAYS followed by the next below-the-belt attack. Because my response to your “I’m sorry” was not forthcoming, or because you all of a sudden felt angry again and so lashed out. Again.

The sad part is that I used to think that the apologetic and contrite Bartender was the real Bartender. But now I think that the apologetic and contrite Bartender is a manipulation and the lethal Bartender is the real you. The Bartender that pitched some girl’s life out the window on the freeway and left her abandoned in a bar, with no keys and no money and no credit cards and no ID… cause you were mad. The Bartender that laughed when he told me the story. After all, she deserved it. Just like I deserved it and your x-wife deserves it.

So I cannot accept your apology and I can not reach my hand out to you to comfort you, even though I might want to. Because I can no longer allow myself to be wounded by you.

I am not writing this because you need me to tell you these things. You’ve either figured this out by now or you never will. I am writing this to remind you what the correct course to take would be. If you are truly sorry and you truly desire to repair what you’ve broken, then you will find a counselor and you will start the process. Instead you say you wish you could go back in time. This is a futile wish. You know you can not and you never will. But waiting for next week will make this week impossible to change as well. HOWEVER, from where you stand right this minute tomorrow is all up to you. You could take tomorrow and DO SOMETHING TO REPAIR WHAT YOU’VE BROKEN.

I honestly wish that you would. I don’t know if it is possible for me to ever trust you intimately. But I would like to be able to be your friend because I love your boy. And I would be very happy to see you creating respect and love and comfort with his mother, so that you can both be good for him. He is a wonderful sweet loving and smart little boy. This chaos is damaging him. No matter how hurt you are, no matter how right you are, no matter what your justification, you are the adult and it is your sacred responsibility to protect and nurture your child. And in order to be good for him and to help him grow into a happy and healthy man, you should love and respect his mother. She is a good girl and she has been nothing but a good friend to you, even after you’ve been horrid to her. She does not deserve to have to shield herself from you for the rest of your son’s childhood.

And your precious son does not deserve to have to divide his loyalty between the two people who mean the most to him.

SO. Now I can trash the damned thing. Yay cyber-cleaning.

Recognition

2008-01-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

Here I float in the deep sea of “Hey I know you” with Marvin. I’ll tell you why I call him Marvin. Later, I will tell you why the recognition scares the life out of me.

I call him Marvin because I have been trying, valiantly, to resist him since the moment he sent me the first email proclaiming that he adores me. I say “trying” because there was no actual resisting going on, just a lot of trying. And one night in the dark womb of my bed with the sleepy penny baby ear pressed near to the low speaker phone, I am doing the “you hang up, no you hang up” thing without saying the words when he said something to me that caused an actual physical TUG in my body. How can words spoken by someone 80 plus miles away over the phone operate as a biological magnet to tug your body one little smidge closer to theirs?

I made a noise. (Do you know that little sound you make when you start to fall from the top of the rollercoaster? That was it. I made the “I’m falling” noise). Apparently, it was an ambiguous noise. He is concerned. Do I laugh at him? Do I mock him? What’s with the noise!?! So, in an effort to reassure him because god-please-do-not-go-away I say “You’re Marvin.”

You know that little Martian from the cartoons?

“Resistance is futile.”

The Doctor is in...

2008-01-17T18:36:00.002-08:00

Right this very moment in life I struggle with the question: How do you ever trust yourself again? I know that I am susceptible to some purty dark shit. Apparently you can lie in my face and I smile. And I have this history of filling up my lonely bits with the wrong people.

WRONG PEOPLE.

So, I suppose I shouldn’t trust me any father than I can throw me cause I suck at this.

But what if I SHOULD trust me? What if what this new suitor – let’s call him Marvin, I will explain later – is offering me, in gilded phrases and wide open adoration, is just what the doctor ordered? (He calls me doctor sometimes. Is it vanity that allows me to just smile and say “Yes?”).

This Marvin rang my door bell and said “Come out to play, Penny, I think you’re SWELL.” That’s good, huh? Ack. I need a bullshit detector.

UP DATE! (do not become ill)

2008-01-15T18:58:00.001-08:00

At the behest of a long lost friend I am asked to blog again. Yikes. It’s not that I don’t miss you guys, cause I do. It’s just that I am loath to open up old wounds. Truth is I sat here reading much of this and it made me cry. Some of it because it reminded me of things that were painful (the baby and all my married lover bullshit) and some because it was just bittersweet (tweeting number three and the noodle dog).

I do not think I have the time nor the inclination to get all the way back. Maybe just part way. Here goes:

I had to end it with the Bartender. It is sad to say had to like there was any hesitance but there was. I am puzzling it out still. I cringe when I write this because one of the many things he did to me was to take away all of my private places and thrust me into the blazing sun with out even the shade of an occasional “Whaz up??” from you guys. One of those private places is here. Does he stalk my Penny Blog still? Who knows. But there is a teeny part of me that flinches a bit because that’s what happens when you are repetitively smacked (emotionally) down. Wince.

I don’t want to catalog the whole thing but I will tell you that my boundaries went all to hell and I lost myself. Lost. Myself.

Do you remember all the work I did on my project? All the painful looking and tweeking and working and making myself “Hot When Naked Writer Chick?” In a fit (little infantile baby piss fit of pique) he called me a wrinkled up old bitch. And it deflated me. All the work flushed down the toilet of his selfish, purulent snit. I was lost. But now I’m found.

But in this effort to stay found I suppose I best admit some stuff. Like the fact that I did not put him out after he followed me into the locked bathroom and ripped the curtain down and screamed at me wet and naked and small and cornered and crying so hard the snot runs down my chin. He does not consider this abuse. After all, I EARNED it by being bad. I don’t recall what the bad thing I did was but clearly it was bad. How about the countless nights where the lights were kept on and the interrogation did not cease and when I hid my head under the blankets he ripped them from the bed and demanded I attend to him NOW.

How about the day he sat in my office across my desk from me and pointed out that my hair clearly indicated I had been fucking someone at work that day.

And how about the day I saw the email he sent to 20 random women on MySpace looking for a girl to fuck him AND some girl from work without waking me, asleep on the other side of the wall, grateful that I was not being subjected to the interrogation? This one I do not have to admit because that was the day I put him out.

But why, you might wonder, did it take so god damned long?

I suspect that I was punishing myself. He was brutal about the affair. He twisted my soul apart and I let him because I AGREED WITH HIM. I had done a hateful, ugly thing and I deserved to be punished for it.

That’s my best answer. What do you think?

Um... Remember me?

2008-01-13T12:17:00.001-08:00

Well old friends, if there are any of you remaining. I started reading some of this and got weepy.

Turns out I miss you guys.

So, I'll be remodeling. Stay tuned.

2006-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

My very first project after taking (and passing) the California Bar Exam will be to edit each and every bar review book I have with a fat red marker and send them off to their insipid and slack-jawed authors.

C.O.D.

Then I will officially change my name to Miss Knows-It-All Smarty-Pants Penny.

Plagiarism

2006-07-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting experience at my law school graduation. The commencement speaker (An unfortunate choice that I will not go into but suffice it to say he was the man standing at the front of the room when my imaginative class was asked to select one -- I was absent) used words and ideas that I had written in his speech. I was speechless. Here's how it happened.

He asked the class to tell him who our heroes are so he could figure out what to say at our commencement. I, being always at the ready, promptly whipped out paper and pen and told him:

"Justice Jackson because he stood in front of the entire world and said if we don't give the Nazis a fair trial, one which risks a not guilty verdict, then we will never be able to call ourselves better than they are." (Or something substantially similar).

He was not aware of Justice Jackson's role in the trials so I said "I've written an essay! I shall email it to you." And I did. Flash forward to graduation day where he stands at the podium and gives a speech based a great deal on my essay using MY EXACT WORDS at times. Shock. and AWE. Who the fuck does this guy think he is?!?

So I emailed him again and said "Liked the speech. You know how I feel about The Mob." He emailed me back, and I am not kidding... He emailed back and said "Well, I was trying to think of a way to say that and I owe some credit to your essay but no one remembers these things anyway. After all, I don't remember who spoke at my graduation."

I was the picture of restraint by not saying "That's probably because your work was not plagiarized."

So, I am on the phone with a long-lost friend last night. We haven't talked in awhile but were still good. and I am telling him this story. I hit the part where I offer to send an essay and he starts laughing. "ONLY YOU Penny. Only you would say HEY! I wrote an essay let me send it to you." True.

True that Homey G.

So, Loyal Blog Monkeys (if there are any left) will know that I once wanted to think of myself as "Hot When Naked Writer Chick". Clearly I get the writer chick part. Only Penny can whip an essay out on you, at a moments notice. Only Penny gets plagiarized at her own graduation. But here's the new part. Here's the news. I am pretty hot when naked now, too.

R{K}G

Number 1 (a)

2006-02-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

The baby is sick.

She has klebsiella pneumonia. I googled it. Because I had never heard of it before.

Turns out this nasty bug has a very high mortality rate. Couple that with the high mortality rate in babies with schizencephaly from respiratory complications and you'll understand my crushing fear.

I had a dream last night that My Boy's baby had died. I dreamt that he needed me.

2006-01-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

I was in the library the other day, just standing in the stacks. I had my ear plugs in because I had been studying and I like to block out the rabble. But sometimes I just wander through the stacks, looking for something interesting. Something I'd like to read someday. Just seeing what there is.

The reference librarian (a rather loud dude who knows not much) walked in with a man and a young girl. He pulled out a volume on sleep disorders and said that he could order her something on narcolepsy if that wasn't what she needed. She and her father got a bit frustrated as there was nothing in the book on narcolepsy. Not surprising. Narcolepsy is not a sleep disorder. (How do you know that Penny, you might wonder, and the answer would be "I'm not exactly sure. I just do.")

So, being helpful I said "I would look in this book" and I reached out a pulled the N volume of a several volumes text on medical stuff out an inch. Dad took it and sure enough -- Narcolepsy. But he is confused! The book says it is on page 645 but the book only had 513 pages. I left him to be confused for a moment. Then I took pity. "That's because the set has 6 volumes."

Oh! He is happy to find what darling daughter needs. She says to him, quite straight-faced, "You always say that you are the smartest person in the world." Penny does not laugh. No one can know everything. But our children do not realize this at eleven. Maybe at thirteen, but at eleven you're still hot shit.

Dad asks me a question but I have to pause to remove the ear plugs. Which must appear strange to him. Weird library girl pulling wads of bright orange guck from under her hair and asking "Hmmm?"

"Where is the copier?"

I honestly do not remember. I know there is one. In fact I think I hear it now. "Somewhere near, I think I hear it now." He looks at me strangely. I wonder why. Perhaps its odd that I could, without recourse to the card catalog, just pull from the shelf the volume he seeks without his even asking for it but I can not locate the copier.

"Don't you work here?"

No. I don't. I guess that was the end of my allure because he turned and walked away without another word. Maybe the noisy reference librarian will have better luck with the copier conundrum.

The PROJECT

2005-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hola Blog Monkeys and Those With Patience...

It has been the busiest time in my life lately. Something's gotta give and guess what? It wasn't just this blog. It was most of my friends, much of the laundry, the general level of cleanliness, working out and the bath room re-model. Don't take it personally. I suck for everyone right now.

Anyway, I want to let you know how the project is coming along. Pretty good, kids! I am out in the sun in my bikini trying to keep my tan... because when I take off my clothes to get in the shower I feel pretty damned hot while naked. and that was the point of the project! Is it possible? Could The Project be at an end???

Perhaps.

Yesterday I had some company while I was in the yard in my bikini. That always creeps me out. Why do strangers think its cool to come and talk to you in your yard? Am I a seperationist at heart? Why wont people just leave me the EFF alone?

Yesterdays visitors were Witnesses. I have nothing against the Witnesses. I just do not wish to be witnessed to. But how upset can I get that a perfect stranger cares so much for me that they try to save my soul from eternal damnation, just cause? Or do they have a quota in order to save their souls from eternal damnation?

Well, I sent them packing. I am not interested in being converted to their doctrine. I am not interested in shouldering their dogma. Plus I have enough to read without adding the Watchtower. But, the truth is, I would have probably spoken to them longer if I had been wearing some clothing. Part of the get-lost-quick-ness of my response was me being nearly naked. Is this a set back? I think not. Polite society requires somewhat modest clothing (at least some of the time) and I need to be stopped before I am just naked all the time, like Will Farrell in some Saturday Night Live sketch come to life.

So. Maybe my coming pasty winter whiteness will change all this but as for right now...

I'm pretty hot naked.

Overheard Number Three...

2005-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

telling her sister "His name is Jeffrey and he wants to marry me in second grade. That means KISS in second grade."

Number Three is not yet in kindergarten so I guess I'm relieved that she plans to wait.

Project Update

2005-09-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Some time this summer I washed my car. This is a feat you would never understand without first having seen my car and the protective layer of dirt I normally keep it wrapped in. I thought my friends would be excited that I ventured into car cleanliness land -- a land that they are usually usually in alone.

Instead the most important question is: Did I wash it in my bikini??

The answer was HELL NO! Are you insane? Stand in the drive for all the world to see in little more than my under things? Hardly.

But, Blog Monkeys (and random visitors that got here by searching "bikini + hell + protective layer of dirt"), you gotta wonder... How is the project coming along if you wont even go out of the house in a bathing suit? Not very well is the answer.

Truth is that I was ignoring it. I quit taking photos. I quit searching out the scary bits and making them my friends. I just let the entire thing slide. Partly because my project manager quit, without even a letter of resignation, and I was left reeling from abandonment. (That is a right good excuse young lady, you outta stick with that one) But also because it was difficult.

Yet I had the "Rather die than go outside in a bathingsuit" reaction to the car wash inquiry. What's that about?

SOOOOOOOO, can you guess where the project has taken me? Into the yard in my bikini. (Number Two child thinks I've been in the yard in my underwear no matter how hot pink and bathing-suit-like it is... makes me wonder what sort of girl she thinks I am!) I've been out there washing the car and watering the jasmine and mowing, etc. in the bikini. People drive by and look at me. I got a nasty sun burn on my fish-belly which has not seen the sun in years I think.

And it's all good. I think I am looking pretty sun kissed now and I no longer feel the need to throw myself behind the hedge every time a car goes by. Its all good. But it does come with its down side, mainly attracting the unwanted attention of passers by.

Today I noticed the red suburban go by for the 4th time and noticed the driver looking at me. I sorta laughed. How good a look can you get at 40 miles an hour? Not so good if you have to keep going by... but then he STOPPED. Holy Cow Blog Monkeys!! Random passing man stopped his car right at my drive and rolled the window down. I was not too worried cause I have a hose. That'll make him think twice! My lethal garden hose. (That's what I told myself anyway)

He asked me if I knew where a non-existent street is. I said nope. He drove off.

All in all it was not so bad. But from now on it's me, the bikini and a hundred and fifty pound dog. And the hose. Don't forget the hose.

Number Three Makes Lunch

2005-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

"This cracker & turkey sandwich is weird. Crunchy. But weird."

Let me just say that it ROCKS to be 4 years old.

More Fantasy...

2005-06-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of moving out Number One and the Idiots stuff. (Long story, perhaps for a post where I feel like crying) At any rate, I was, mere moments ago, struggling with a mattress in the hallway when I remembered one of my fondest fantasies.

It goes like this -- My mother is in my hall way in the middle of the day cleaning everything out of Number Ones room (Again, don't ask) when she stumbles and falls, wedging herself in the hall under the mattress where she promptly suffocates. I return home to discover her dead body in my hallway, already stiffening so clearly too late for CPR no matter how valiantly I may try to revive her (after fetching my CPR mask from the cabinet of course).

This one was so tasty, so beloved, that I used to day dream it even after she managed to get the mattress out by herself. Even after she had erased all traces of Number One from my house. Even after she had packed all her own stuff and moved to South Carolina. Even today, kids.

But then it dawned on me, the nature of irony, as I wobbled and tottered in the hall with the mattress. The nature of irony is that it would be ME that fell, and ME that wedged and ME that suffocated so completely -- stiffened and cooled. ME! I don't wanna die of terminal irony!

So I am leaving that mattress wedged in the hall until someone shows up to help me. Or at least do CPR if I stumble. After fetching the mask, of course.

Tell Me Your Fantasy

2005-06-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

I tried to do this thing with The Bartender last night. You know that thing where you tell your partner your secret fantasy, in hopes that they will be understanding and accepting and then DO IT WITH YOU?

It's not that easy to just open up and share very intimate stuff. Stuff you long for. Stuff you need to share with another human being. You risk rejection. You risk being judged. It's risky, damn it

But I'm lonely.

So I decided to tell him my little fantasy and see if he'll do it with me. Cause I'm lonely. and pathetic.

It went something like this:

Penny "Do you know what I secretly long for?"

The Bartender "Huh?"

Penny "Do you want to know the thing that I think about at night, when I'm alone?"

The Bartender "Wait a minute. Are you serious?"

Penny "That thing which most excited me? The thing I day dream about? The thing that sooooooo turns me on?"

The Bartender "(Nothin. He's got nothin.)"

Penny "Here it is. I would like to go to Harvard law school after I graduate. I think it would be fun to just mop the floor with all those stuck up Harvard kids. Dude, that would rock."

The Bartender "That's the most colossal waste of time I've ever heard of."

Alright. I admit that this was a dramatic reenactment based only loosely on true events. But it was based on true events. The reality is much sadder though. Because I do honestly think that would rock. And The Bartender is supposed to say "Yes! Me too!" and then engage in a conversation where we fantasize about beating up Harvard wonks with nothing but our bare intellect. However, he doesn't do this. What he does is explain to me how those kids are really smart and some of them do nothing but study and I'm not likely to be able to do the thing I am saying I'd like to do... In other words he pisses all over my fantasy.

And, Loyal Blog Monkeys, he does this every single time I try to talk about anything. Where has the sweet Bartender gone, you may wonder. I wonder the same thing. I am getting a bit tired of the constant sparring and I'm ready for some shade. (Don't get me started on the origin of shade... Suffice it to say that shade means a spot where I can just be cool and not coated in 6 layers of protective clothing and zinc and emotional SPF 5000.)

So, I inquire: "What the hell is going on with you?"

And the answer came as a bit of a shock. A bit of a slap. A bit of a dash with the old cold water, kids. Seems that I broke his heart. I hurt him. and now he's afraid of me. But not so afraid to stay away entirely but certainly too afraid to be very nice to me again.

Holy Cow and Crap and whatever else suits you.

So I just apologized. I am sorry. I was worried that I was going to be bad for him at the time. And I was right to worry. But is it really all my fault? I was honest with him. Is it my fault that he ignored me and got involved?

No. It's not. IT'S NOT DAMN IT!

But I said so sorry. I never meant to hurt him. I like him. So sorry.

"When do you think I'll get regular girl status again? and we can just act like normal people? Ever?"

and he says he doesn't know. That has to be good enough since I can't make him know, right? By 4:30 this afternoon. I wish it worked like that. But it does not.

So I drove home nearly settled on the idea that I am just going to stop seeing The Bartender. All the sweet endearing parts are absent. I am left with SPF 5000 and a feeling of weariness. Last night we didn't even have dinner. So it's time to just throw in the towel and let it float away. Time to face reality. Time to quit beating myself up.

Then at 12:30 am the phone rings.

He tells me he meant to leave me a voice mail. I ask should I hang up so you can do that? He says no I just wanted to tell you that I miss you and to have a nice night and I'd really like to see you on Thursday. But mostly I miss you. And I'm sorry that things got weird. And I've missed you.

There's the sweet Bartender.

Next time I see him I am gonna tell him my fantasy where I'm the judge and I stand up in court and yell "Rusty, take him away!" Hopefully he'll say "Can I be Rusty?" cause that's what I call FUN.

2005-06-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile it's good to remember how small we really are...

2005-06-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

Squirrels are closely related to chipmonks...

Speculation Consternation

2005-06-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

Meet a new member of the Bad Penny Cast: Miss Kitty. Ms. K is my best girly friend, in all important girly friend ways. Recently she packed up and moved -- She is the reason I must now brave the Highway of DEATH -- away. So she made some new friends. (Of course I would never suggest that Bad Penny is replaceable, so these new friends were pale substitutes at best.) I was glad for her. It's hard to move and feel isolated. And nice to have lots of friends.

But somethings gone dreadfully wrong and Ms. K has no idea what.

Another friend of mine and I were discussing our daughters and observed the age old FACT that girls are mean! We were both "Best-Guy-Friend" girls, neither one hanging out with other girls too much. Her daughter seems to be the same type. My Number Two daughter is not. She's a girls-girl and recently had her first mean girls experience which left her wanting to move far, far away because "My friends aren't my friends anymore!" The idea that this is a temporary condition was suggested and I said "But it just happened to Ms. K." and she's a grown woman!

My darling, wonderful, sweet and good Ms. K has been summarily dismissed as a friend with out explanation... left with nothing to explain it but speculation. I am here to tell you kids, SPECULATION** SUCKS.

I am also recently dropped head first into a vat of speculation. I'm no good at it. I always speculate the absolute worst thing. Then I tell myself "That's silly! Give this the benefit of the doubt" ... but the worst possible thing thing creeps back in. Which is why its nice to just be told something, anything. To be provided with an explanation.

Pick one! I'm not your friend any more because:

You smell bad.
I hate that my husband is always looking at your ass.
My girlfriend hates you and I like her better.
You said a terrible thing and I can't forgive you.
You stold a hundred bucks from me.
I'm afraid to care more because then you could hurt me.
You chew with your mouth open.
Whatever...

There's a reason. Pick one.

But even in the absence of a reason I began to wonder about the nature of friendship; the nature of love. Is it really all about what you do for me? Is it all reciprocity and score keeping? Or is it some thing more than that, something outside ourselves?

And, at least for now, I decided that friendship and love are gifts. They are not given with the expectation of getting something back. They're gifts. And just like I am not one of those girls that takes everything I ever gave you back because we are breaking up, I am also not one of those girls that's gonna un-give my friendship. Or my love.

It was a gift.

** I cannot help but define speculation as the application of a speculum... sorry. I'm twisted.

I am an OLDER Woman... (Yikes)

2005-06-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Bartender is younger than me. 5 years younger. Is this enough to make any sort of difference, really? It certainly feels like it this morning, kids.

OK, now don't jump to salacious conclusions. Even if I were the sort of girl who'd kiss and tell there's not that much to tell. Except that we stayed up 'til after four freaking a.m. What possessed me?!?

We watched a movie, which was fun. Ate pop corn, also fun. Then switched to music and some insanely maddening bicker about the UNRUH Act and whether or not men are really injured by Ladies Night promotions... and then WHAMMO. Its four in the morning and reality strikes in the form of Number Three at 6:45 ~ wanting breakfast.

Oh Blog Monkeys! I am tired.

But I still took my charge to call The Bartender at an appointed time (OK, I'll tell you it was 9:45, lucky bastard!) because his alarm clock is currently not certain if it really wants to be an alarm clock at all anymore, or just a paper weight.

So I dial, and there's no ring... Cause his phone is OFF. And it's still off.

Perhaps he will think that I've nearly killed him as well. When he finally wakes up. Late for work.

Will She or Won't She Lesbian Quandary @ an End

2005-06-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Ever since making the enormous mistake of loaning her car to Number One and the Idiot boy friend and then trying to hide the subsequent hit and run debacle from me, Angel has been MIA.

Not a peep.

So I'll relate our last in person interaction as I think it was THE LAST ever.

Angel comes walking in my back door, no knock.

I said "Hey, not even my longest girly friend does that!"

"You told me to use the back door. Heh."

"But you should knock! What if you come walking in and I'm naked?"

"That's when I'll finally get cha." She winks. I swear she winked.

"I'm gonna get a boy friend and we're gonna do it, a lot, in the kitchen. That'll show you."

"Promises, promises..."

Truth OR Dare

2005-06-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

Right this very second there is a game of truth or dare going on in my kitchen! 5 little girls (Number Two, Number Three and 3 friends) are spinning an empty apple juice bottle and playing the age old game. When it started I thought "What the HELL!?!" but decided to listen in...

Lets listen in together.

"Truth or dare?" Oldest neighbor girl asks.
"Truthy." Number Three responds.
"Is it true you like your mothers cooking?"
(I can not hear the response over my own mad laughter)

"Truth or dare?" Youngest neighbor girl asks.
"Clean dare!" Number Two responds.
Whisper, whisper, whisper.
Number Two runs into the room I am in and gives me a big MMMMMMMMM kiss smack on the lips then runs back to the kitchen and proclaims "I grabbed her just like this!"

Oh dear, Blog Monkeys! I don't remember truth or dare being quite like this. I hope it stays that way. What are the odds?

Foot Porn

2005-06-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

If profile views were legal tender I could get me a nifty thing or two with $1292.

The Noodle Dog

2005-06-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

Last summer Number Three daughter was looking at a picture book with kittens and puppies in it.

"Hey Momma!" Tweets she. "Look at this dog!" Pointing at a wrinkly Shar Pei puppy in a basket. "It's a NOODLE DOG!"

"A noodle dog?" Hmmmmm, I've never heard of noodle dogs before...

"Yes," she nods authoritatively. "You eat them. They're delicious."

Days of Dead Deer

2005-06-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back. I've been trying to think up an interesting title for my vacation and you're looking at it. How many mangled deer can you stand to see in one afternoon? I am not exaggerating if I say I saw 472 million road-killed deer in the last 10 days.

OK. Maybe I am exaggerating. But only a little bit.

They were EVERYWHERE! On the interstates. Along the state routes. Piled up like cord wood next to peoples drive ways. It was sickening.

I also spent some time with my gramma. This is an interesting woman. When my brother and I were young she insisted that we call her Donna instead of gramma. I insisted she call me Penny instead of Debbie. We are still in this mode.

"Now Penny. Who are your sisters again?"

"I don't have any sisters, Donna. Just the one brother, your grandson, Nickel."

"Oh, Debbie, you do to have sisters. There's Dorothy and who else?"

"Nope, not me."

and then this one:

"Penny, look here at this photo of you and my mother."

"Thats not me Donna, that's my mom."

"Its you, Chris."

"No. I was not even alive when this photo was taken."

"Well, maybe its Dorothy."

"Who is Dorothy?"

"You know, your sister."

"Oh, yeah, her. Maybe it is."

I did have a few moments of deer envy. So peaceful to just fling yourself into traffic.

2005-06-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

1270... profile views. I feel slightly less lonely. Slightly. You?

Loop...

2005-06-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am having a truly strange first day back. I wanna say it's all hormones. Dratted, dreaded girly hormones. But then I heard this silly bit of a movie my kids are watching and it struck me:

"I feel as though a loop has just been formed... and I'm not in it."

Ah, yes. That's it. Disconnection.

My HOT Airport Date

2005-05-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

I needed a ride to the airport. I asked a friend a few weeks ago ("What are the odds you could take me to the airport?" "Zero." zero is our number) Asked my Girly friend. She's gotta get her kids to school and her hubby is going to work too early and wishes she could but she can't.

So I asked the Bartender.

He says "Gee I would but I have to be at work by 10:30."

I said "No problem. I have to be at the airport around 8."

He replies "Gee I would but... I don't wanna."

Oh well. I said "Oh well"

Later that day, I am taking Little B to my house and The Bartender says to his son "Penny will take good care of you, cause if she doesn't I'll crash her on the way to the airport."

"You're taking me to the airport?"

"You bet."

Strangely, I am looking forward to this. The Bartender and I need to have a talk about what our current state of relationship is. Because when we last discussed it he pretty much told me it was bad for him to be chasing me around while I was all screwed up. Bad for him to be engaged in unrequited "crush". I get that.

And that was bad for me as well.

So we need to talk a bit. Plus its always nice to have someone to kiss good bye.

I'll see you all when I get back!

The Deep End of Secrets

2005-05-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

When I was kid, my dad taught me how to swim by tossing me into the deep end of the pool and then yelling encouragement such as "Stop flailing and sputtering SWIM for christs sake!"

Interesting memory since I've been engaged in some more introspection lately. I think this childhood experience was valuable for me. No, not to make me feel safe (or even wanted) but certainly to teach me that you either sink or you swim. JUST DO IT.

When things need to be done then they are best done. Even the difficult things. I remember the first time I really screwed up at work. I damaged a vehicle. By being a dumb ass. The first thought that went through my mind was to slop some white-out on there and put enough distance between me and the event to create some plausible deniability. (What scrape? What gooey white substance?? I haven't been near that car in 4 and a half hours, musta been someone else!)

But what I did instead was take a deep breath, walk into my boss's office and fess up. And it turns out it wasn't so bad. I was 23 years old. I have been that way ever since.

Just DO IT.

Things which linger and eat at your soul... This is no good.

Just a couple days ago Number One fessed up that her boyfriend had side-swiped another car while at the wheel of Angels car. I was inquiring about all the cryptic phone calls. She said "Angel doesn't want you to know either."

Interesting. My friend and my daughter engaged in keeping a secret from me. I wondered why but not too much. I imagine that everyone felt stupid. Angel for letting them have her car, Number One for being attached to such an idiot... the idiot for being proven an idiot.

So I told my child this: "When you have to remember who knows about what and keep some things from these people and other things from those people... There's something wrong. Either something wrong with you or something wrong with the people in your life. Because you should not have to keep these kinds of secrets."

SECRETS. I found an interesting site on Blog Spot. People writing their secrets onto home-made post cards and sending them off to be published. There is something compelling and sickening about them, all at the same time. One of them reminded me of someone I know. None of them reminded me of me.

Is it because I don't have anymore secrets? Probably not. I still have a few I guess. But I think I've really pulled the two parts of my life together in a way. I've coalesced. And it feels pretty damn good.

For those of you who still harbor secrets, who are cleaved in half... I can't throw you in the pool. You gotta do it yourself.

Just do it. Quit sputtering and SWIM.

Gotta Love the Instant Message!

2005-05-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

I recently got a message from some dude in France. Why do I want to talk to some random France dude? I don't.

Today I added my Yahoo ID to my profile. This way when I get random messages, maybe they'll be from some one it would be cool to say HEY to.

Hey.

Help me... I'm HOOKED on the Quiz

2005-05-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

Only Occasionally Normal... I'm shocked. You?

2005-05-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

You Are 35% Normal

(Occasionally Normal)

You sure do march to your own beat...

But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all

You think on a totally different wavelength

And it's often a chore to get people to understand you

How Normal Are You?

Who Is Looking at My Feet?

2005-05-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

1145

That frankly astounds me! It's a nearly impossible number of profile viewers. Who knew?

On Line Dating... or How Penny Got Her Groove Back

2005-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

Italian Guy :ciao

Penny: Hola

Italian Guy: how r u

Penny: a little sleepy... you?

Italian Guy: im fine

Italian Guy: i have to say youre a cutie [points for using the correct you're]

Penny: well, thank you
I have to say you're too young for me~

Penny: heres a question [He has non-smoker in his profile but a photo of himself with a nasty-ass cigar sticking out of his face] do cigars not count as smoking?

Italian Guy: i smoke like 5 a year

Italian Guy :in summer

Italian Guy: wow you r a hottie am i really to young

Penny: you are 10 years younger than me!

Italian Guy: is that a problem

Penny: depends on what you mean by problem

Italian Guy: the age factor

Penny: are you vacuous?

Penny: dont look it up

Italian Guy: whats that

Penny: silly

Penny: empty headed

Italian Guy: im not

Italian Guy: why ?

Penny: well its hard not to classify people

Italian Guy: im not like that

Penny: I try not to be but its been difficult on here

Penny: its a weird way to meet people, you know?

Penny: so do you have an actual job or are you hoping? [he's coming to Los Angeles for an "acting" job]

Italian Guy: yes im a professional actor in Milano

Italian Guy: a long with being a lawyer [alright. Can I let him get away with this one? He didn't know what vacuous means...]

Penny: get out of town

Penny: you are not a lawyer... I am prepared with a quiz . say when you're ready

Italian Guy: go for it

Penny: I will not ask you the rule against perpetuities... cause Im nice. Whats Res Ipsa Loquitur mean?

Italian Guy: the same thing means

Penny: Nope

Italian Guy: loquitur means sepaking [points for googleing latin JK]

Penny: speaks ... res ipsa loquitur is a legal term of art!

Penny: alright that was hard, sorry

Italian Guy: hey ill be back shortly

Italian Guy: dont go away

He never came back.

OK. So I lied about getting my groove back. Sue me.

Typo Mystery Update...

2005-05-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

Read about the mystery in the next post, which is technically the last post, before you read this post OR you will become hopelessly confused and blame it on my inability to articulate funny things in proper order while in fact it is your inability to read funny things in their proper order which is almost, but not quite, as irritating and just plain wrong as people who insist on writing in run-on sentences.

The message now reads thus;

Help me I hook Dean Failer proff

I am having a bit of trouble with the proff part. Cause proff is not really a word. But then it came to me. What if my brain is sending secret messages but -- stay with me here -- TYPO-ED THE MESSAGE!?! What if my brain meant prof, but accidentally added that extra stutter "f " at the end? PROF is a word. It's short for professor.

AND, get this kids, I am in law school... Law school where we have BOTH a Dean and Profs ... and the opportunity to fail! I'm the failer? Who is the Prof??

And most importantly what kind of hook are we talking here? I think this means I am either:

A. About to trade sex for grades or

B. Become one of those psycho killers ("... and when they got home that night there was this hook dangling from the car handle!! ARGGGGGHHHHHH!").

Holy Cow Loyal Blog Monkeys! It looks inevitable. Stay tuned for updates.

Bad Penny ~ Typo Mystery

2005-05-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Recently my typing skill has taken a turn for the worst. I am some what used to it in IM, after all there you go for speed. But my regular typing has gone to pot too. and in the strangest way. I find myself writing actual words... just not the words I meant.

Then I gaze down at the key board and wonder how did that happen? Usually the words do not have enough similarity to make sense. The mixed up letters are no where near each other on the keyboard. It was a mystery until I realized that , clearly, my brain is trying to send a message. I began trying to receive it by collecting each misplaced word to form a sentence. So far it reads like this:

HELP ME I HOOK... Hook what? and is the message for me? Or is it a secret message my brain is trying to get past me, to someone else? How long has my brain been engaged in this secret relationship. Behind my back, so to speak!?! A little help here, ok? Cause I can't figure this out by myself. and I've been trying real hard. But I have to use my own brain and... It's in on it.

How I know J loves me even though he refuses to say it...

2005-05-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've tried to trick him into saying it. (I once quizzed him "So what did that girl in Indiana Jones write on her eye lids?" "I lo- GOOD try missy!") But he won't. He has something against the gratuitous dropping of the love bomb. What he fails to recognize, though, is its there or its not -- whether you say it or not.

Penny says:
I whacked my self in the toes with the string trimmer today

J says:
ouch
dammit

Penny says:
and cried like a baby

J says:
you should have lit that piece of crap on fire
lol

Penny says:
what will I cut the lawn with?

J says:
light the damn lawn on fire

Penny says:
thanks for being my friend

J says:
gasoline

J says:
let it soak in

Penny says:
OK

J says:
WOOF
it's gone

Penny says:
good plan

Penny says:
I'll call you from jail

J says:
sweet and I'll arrange a jailbreak

J says:
and we'll run across the country, lighting everyone's lawn on fire

J says:
leaving a trail of molten grass in our wake

J says:
RESIST!

Penny says:
You are the BEST FRIEND EVER~!

Thats how.

Summer Time... and the livin's easy

2005-05-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

Good Blog Monkeys know that Penny is an old fashioned girl. I believe that there are certain things that men were meant to do, and certain things that women were meant to do... and, if life is fair, the two should never meet.

For instance, lawn mowing.

I own a lawn mower. However, Scooter has so entrenched it in the garage (Under two tons of trash which Scooter can not throw out and Penny can not throw out either -- he because he is insane, she because she is small and weak and literally can not throw the shit out.) Hence the ordeal of removing the mower from the garage is nearly impossible. I could do it it, though. I do not because once I get the thing out I can not start it.

I have learned this bit of wisdom on far too many occasions. I have scraped my knuckles, battered my shoulder and broken toes kicking it while cursing in great streams of scurrilous expletives. I prime. I check the spark plug. I twist the throttle in complicated ways. All of it to no avail. So, wisely, I no longer even try.

My lawn is a trooper though. It does not notice the lack of mowing and quit growing. Nope. It notices the lack of mowing and screams COWABUNGA! I have witnessed, with my own eyes, my lawn growing. If you were to lie down on it and take a nap? You would wake encased in over enthusiastic St. Augustine sod. I once saw it swallow a rake.

Well, you might wonder, what does Penny do? Clearly she can not let the lawn run amok, eating small pets and various gardening implements. (I swear, the only reason Steve King has not written about my lawn is because he can not imagine an evil so... Verdant) The lawn must be dealt with.

So I cut it with my string trimmer.

This is no small task. It generally takes three days. Three days of trimming, raking, sweeping, etc. But what the hell else have I got to do?

Yesterday was day one. Today is day two. If I am lucky I'll have it all finished by Wednesday and then can rest on Thursday. By Friday it will be menacing my children and their friends so I'll start over. My feet are a loverly shade of green. I have wads of grass under my eye lids. The insects take refuge in my hair since that seems safe from the trimmer.

Alas, my friends, while others are basking in summer fun, Penny will be basking is clouds of green trimmer exhaust. Fortunately green is a good color on me.

2005-05-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

FUNNY!

Current Events

2005-05-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow Loyal Blog Monkeys!

Couple of things. First off I am punch drunk with the "I just took my last exam and life is good" high I get from eating excedrin and coke to live through it. Or at least remain awake. Then I get home and my eyes are WHAMMO! wide open. No rest for the wicked.

Any way. I've found that the name Bad Penny tends to bring nasty-dirty thoughts to the on-line dating-guy mind. Maybe I need to change that. Or learn to love Beavis and Butthead type interactions. heh heh.

And, for the first time in a long time, I looked at my profile views.

1061

What the heck are so many people doing looking at my profile?? Just today a friend says, in a keen and off-hand manner "I know a girl in the foot porn industry."

Penny replies in total wide-eyed-idiot innocence "O yeah?!?"

Friend, only the teenyist smirk to belie his devious nature says "Yeah."

And being rather bright myself I query "Does she make much money at that?"

"Thats the weird part," says he "She does it for the love of deviants."

Don't take that personally, my Monkey Children. He doesn't know you like I do.

Conversations with Microsoft Money

2005-05-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

MSN $: ADVISOR FYI

Me: Uh huh?

MSN $: Your total available cash has been decreasing!

Me: Duh.

MSN $: ALERT!

Me: What is it now?

MSN $: You've exceeded your monthly budget for food.

Me: What is my budget for food set at?

MSN $: $40.01

Me: A month!?!

MSN $: Yep

Me: Don't you think that must be a mistake?

MSN $: I do not make mistakes.

Me: I don't remember even setting a budget...

MSN $: I did it for you.

Me: And we only get forty bucks to eat on?

MSN $: Don't blame me. I don't decide how much money goes in... just how much goes out.

Me: I need a snack. or breakfast. My head is swimming.

MSN $: Just calm down missy. The kids can eat at the neighbors house and you've been looking a little... plump.

Me: There must be some mistake.

MSN $: ADVISOR FYI! Your total available cash had been decreasing.

Me: Oh yes, now I remember.

Did you know...

2005-04-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

that poison control in California gets at least one call a day regarding those little packets of silica gel found in shoe boxes and hand bags and stuff? Did you know that the glue on those packets will turn little lips an alarming shade of white? And did you know that at the tender age of 4 the printed words DO NOT EAT might as well say TASTY SNACK?

Neither did I 'til just this afternoon.

Instant Message Confusification

2005-04-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Penny says:
tyuow

Penny says:
opikj

Penny says:
huuy

J says:
huuy to you too!

Penny says:
kjhb

J says:
blat!

J says:
sclbtaba?

J says:
hyunka! kng... kng...

Do you suppose he'll ever figure out that he was talking to Number Three daughter and not me?

The Worst Day of My Life

2005-04-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

If you have not read the previous post titled Number 1 (a), that is where I described the diagnosis. This is how I got the diagnosis.

Something about the baby was not right. She was not making eye contact and she was not... right. She was wrong.

I was honestly afraid that someone had hurt her. Shaken her. Dropped her. I suffocated on my something-is-wrong-with-the-baby-ness. But I am not her mother. So I had to employ collateral parenting tactics.

I started with suggesting that the baby needs to see the doctor. Which met with the monosylabic response "Soon." I then advanced to the baby needs to see a doctor NOW. Which was met with "Appointment is on Weds." So I queried at what time? Because I am attending this appointment. Which was met with:

"You are the only one worried about this. Everyone else thinks she's fine. CC thinks she's fine and CC is a NURSE!"

(Dashed in the face with freezing cold water. CC is Number 1 (a)s other grandmother. Not only does my own child not take my advice but she listens to this asinine, vapid, idiotic, clueless excuse for -- that was a tough one)

Then I discover that there is no appointment. There's a maybe we are gonna walk-in tomorrow, maybe not. That is when I shifted gears from collateral to full-frontal parenting. I said "We will go to the hospital tomorrow. I want you and the baby in the car by 9 am." and so we went.

We got bumped to the head of the line. Others waiting looked at us with venom. "Why do they get to go first?" Don't they know that going first in the emergency department is BAD news not good?

The doctors paraded through, each towing along a new one. They whispered. They consulted. They decided she needs a CT scan. and an MRI. and an EEG. She needs to be admitted. She needs an IV. She needs blood work.

She needs.

There is very uncertain talk about the CT scan showing some abnormality. No one tells me what this means. I ask "It is consistent with injury?" they say could be. She needs an MRI.

For an MRI to work properly the patient must lie very still. It is impossible for a two month old baby to lie very still with out sedation. In order to sedate the baby she must be NPO for 8 hours. Are you familiar with this medical code? NPO? Nothing by Mouth. No food.

Can you imagine not feeding a two month old baby for 8 hours? Turns out it was far worse than even that.

Number One Daughter went home at midnight. She nursed the baby and then went home to sleep. I started to resent her for that. Here is her child, her precious fragile innocent dependent, about to experience the worst time of her small life. and her mother left her.

So I stayed.

From Midnight to 2 am she was a normal baby. She slept and she snuggled and stayed warm and happy. At 2 she mentioned that she was hungry. Between 2 and 3 or so she was distracted with the pacifier and Granny who sang in her ear. Around 3 she began to demand. Her cries were angry DO NOT IGNORE ME cries. Her body was stiff, she pulled my hair.

Around 4 she was despondent. Her cries had turned from demanding to wails of pain and fear. She would not take the pacifier. She would not be distracted. So began a cycle of crying until there was no sound left in her, just hiccups and hitches and whimpers. She would sleep fitfully until she had regained enough strength to cry again.

We walked, towing the IV stand and disconnected from all the blinking monitors. Angry nurses would admonish me "She has to remain connected to the pulse-ox machine!" and I would say "yes, of course, so sorry." and then unplug her when they'd left.

We rocked, I sang, I whispered promises and apologies and prayers.

"A pony. Granny will buy you a pony and we will make your mother clean up after it!"

Hush, hush, little baby, I'm so sorry.

We went on like that until 11:00 am when they finally sedated her for the EEG. Eleven hours with out food or water. Nine hours of pure torture with no way for her to understand why it was necessary, why it did not mean that I did not love her. No way to possibly understand anything but abandonment and hunger and fear.

There are no words to express the depth of my pain. Of my helplessness, impotence; of my own fear.

When they finally sedated her I felt like I had been in battle. My body filled with unused adrenaline. Wrought with sleeplessness and pacing while holding her. My back bent. My feet throbbing. My heart broken.

My heart broken.

It was shortly after the EEG that the neurologist showed me her CT scan. Pointed out the defects. Patiently explained what it meant. Explained that she could go home as soon as she was awake enough because there was no longer any rush. We are no longer at the head of the line. She can have an MRI weeks from now, it makes no difference if we wait. Because nothing is changing. There is nothing to repair. Nothing to fix. Nothing to be done.

I went home that afternoon, while she was unconscious. I stood my battered body in the shower and cried. Cried until my eyes were swollen and the water ran cold. Taking not one speck of pleasure in the knowledge that I had been right, something was wrong with the baby. And not a bit of smugness knowing that I was the one who stayed with her while CC slept in her bed. Because even though it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, even though I have never felt such pain before, I would not trade one second of it for careless, selfish sleep.

Some things are worse than pain.

Number 1 (a)

2005-04-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have dreamed about her. Mostly she was skipping and singing. Dark hair and blue blue eyes. She was gonna call me Granny (even though its the most archaic grandma name I know I was gonna love it).

In my closet is a book called What's in Grannys Purse? We we're going to sit and read it together. Read it so many times that we could say the words with out looking. And when she graduated from high school I was going to say "Do you remember when I taught you to read? The book we read?" and she would say some of those words and remember. Remember how much I love her.

We were going to hold hands.

She was going to call me when she hated her mother and I was going to remind her how much her mother loves her.

We were going to share secrets.

I was going to clap and cheer when she walked. Tell my friends how amazing she is. Secretly compare her to everyone else's little girl ...

I still dream about her. In my dreams she rolls. and walks. and sees.

But we are never going to know that little girl. She died when the doctor showed me the CT scan. Explained what the vacant places in her brain mean. Schizencephaly is schiz -- like broken, fractured, divided -- and encephly -- brain. She has a fractured brain. Polymicrogyria. Poly is many, micro is small -- too small, and crumpled and wadded and wrong -- gyria. What is gyria? Twisted. Dizzy. Sick.

I do not need to be a doctor to see that her brain is broken. To understand what these awful words mean. INSULTED. The teeny little bit of her that was to become her brain was insulted. Destroyed. Given bad instructions. and then it grew a bad brain.

I was holding her yesterday when I felt her first clonic seizure. Evidence of her defect leaking out of her brain and into her body. A body which will likely never walk, let alone skip. Housing eyes that will never see me, let alone read our book together.

But if you kiss her, really smootch her, she will grace you with a smile which says "I am in here, some bit of me is left in here." and I can't decide if that is the greatest tragedy of all.

I wonder if she will dream, too. I hope we hold hands in her dreams. Like we do in mine.

Valentine's Schmalentine's

2005-02-15T08:04:00.000-08:00

Love sucks.

I got a flower. Its made from paper, tape and glitter glue. Its in a graceful red vase. Also made from paper and tape but tastefully... no glitter on the vase. If you don't count the glittery fingerprints. Number Two is the sweetest girl in the world. (Don't tell One and Three I said so)

But as for the romantic GIRLY valentine's day (not capitalized intentionally) wishes:

I got a red velvet choker. Girls like jewelry for valentine's. And I got my favorite candy! Trouble is bought myself the candy and choker. Do I feel pathetic and unloved. Well, yeah. I do.

The Bartender tried to take me to dinner. But I turned him down. That's my fault so I can't complain, can I?

Sexy Granny Penny

2005-02-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

As many of you know... I am unusually sexy. Why every time I turn around there's some dude looking at my ass and whistling. Nice respectful Would Ya Get A Loada THAT! whistling. "Meet my MOM" whistling. I'm that hot. Don't look like a Granny.

And get this! I have these super hot bondage boots. Black leather. Laces up the back... I put those on and look out! The hotness is increased. Then I don't even look like a Mommy. I look like a super hot single girl without children and nothing to do but run around with you and get in all kinds of trouble in my hot bondage boots. I am so Single-Girl-Not-a-Mommy-HOT that I fool myself. I fool my own self, Loyal Blog Monkeys, into believing I am THAT GIRL.

So today I am getting all tarted up for school, getting dressed and on with the bondage boots. Look out!

But wait. Wait one little second... there's something in my boots. What the HELL is that? Hot-Not-A-Mommy-Ness facade is shattered in an instant when Penny discovers that her super hot bondage single girl boots are full of

Cheerios.

Turn and Face the Strange Changes...

2005-02-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

To begin with I 86ed the poll. Polls are starting to bug me. Imagine that!

Next, and as a special Bonus Prize!, I've added a little cast bio on the right. (Right. Right over there. Just look at the right and you'll see it there.) It was at the suggestion of a Loyal Blog Monkey and you all know that I live to do your bidding!

Furthermore and without any ado I added a little list of Blog Monkeys. Kids, my dear sweet wonderful monkey children... If your name does not appear there it is only because Penny is tired and addled and frankly a bit slow. There are more I know. At least two, maybe three, more Loyal Blog Monkeys. I will add you. I promise.

Darling! You know I love you. Just remind me, again, what your name is?

Reprise... This is a Former Post but it Seemed SO Relevant Still

2005-02-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about sex. I have been told that I just need to get laid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this something that people say to other people who are too uptight and tense and bitchy... wait. OK. I see now.

Anyway, I'm talking to J who has ended his period of celibacy and therefore distanced himself from me now in a fundamental way. Will we ever be the same again? Who knows. I mean, I knew J was gonna get some sooner or later. But I had no idea how JEALOUS I'd be. I'm not jealous cause J is sleeping with some woman who is not me. DUH. I'm jealous cause J is sleeping with some woman and I'm not sleeping with anyone. It's not fair.

Really GOOD friends hang in with you. Really GOOD friends say "You're on a diet? Well, me too then!" or "Chemo therapy? I'll shave my head!" But not my J. My J says "Tough cookies, Dottie. Go get yourself laid and quit harshing my mellow." Crap.

OK. So why can't I just take some good advice. Practically everyone is giving it except for my sweetly naive friend from school... We'll call her An. She is Iranian. She speaks Farsi. She has some language hang ups with English.

"Don't you have to get divorced before you can have a boy friend?" An asks.

"Well, no. There's no law."

"Isn't that bigamy?" An wants to know. "Wait. What's the word? Don't you have to get a divorce first?"

"No An. If you can date while you're married you can certainly date while you're separated."

"But that's bigamy."

"NO, It's adultery."

"Yes, I knew there was a word..."

So, An doesn't think I should just get laid, at least not without finalizing my whole marriage to scooter thing. But everyone else says JUST DO IT.

But I am not that kinda girl. I need a little more than working parts, you know? Then there is this other thing. I have the sneaking suspicion that my girly friend (Lets call her Angel since she is a biker chick) Angel is hitting on me. Just kinda dipping her toe in the "Wonder if Penny would be open to making out with me?" Pool. This really throws me a curve. Since I get the same freaking advice.

JUST DO IT.

Jackass says "How did you know you liked tofu before you tried it? Do you get my point?"

"Um yeah. I get your point. Somehow all these years of feeling pretty damn heterosexual have mislead me into thinking I am not a lesbian!"

"Yes. That's right. Now. I'll be the guy in the closet with the camera..."

So I run it by J. He is on the exact same page as jackass. Go for it! It is the perfect solution to your problem. Just give it up to Angel.

"If I were a woman I would make out with her. Women are great. All soft and curvy." says J.

"Men are great," says Penny. "All hard. and manly."

"Ew." J sees my point I think.

"And If I were a man... well, I would NOT make out with men. Dude, I'd be all over women."

In all honesty I'll have to say that J never mentioned he'd work the camera. But if I sent him a plane ticket I bet I could talk him into it.

Where does all of this leave me? Still alone. With no one to sleep with and lick and bite (In a very sexy way, not a painful way, I swear) and squish up against in the early morning half asleep but half awake and glad not to be feeling like THAT by myself. Still. Alone.

It's not that good friends don't get laid... good friends just don't rub it in.

Life is Funny Sometimes...

2005-02-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

Summer is quickly approaching. Careening right at me like a run away train, throttling head long through the night gaining speed and inertia and... Unstoppable.

So I've been thinking about J. We met in a fairly unusual way and perhaps "met" is not the right word to use. I was surfing blogs and came across a bit of writing that just spoke to me... Here is this guy (pretty cute!) who seemed to know exactly what I was experiencing. I even remember the name of this post "Reel Me Back In".

J was struggling with his S***n troubles and I was struggling with my Jackass troubles... So I left him a comment. It was not the first comment I had ever left. I did not expect too much. Just thought "It's nice when another human being acknowleges you. Recognizes your basic sameness." I expected nothing.

But I ended up with one of the best friends I've ever had.

Life is funny I guess. I count J among my top seven best friends**. J rates with me. He is my project manager and has had such a positive impact on me during a very difficult time that I don't know if I could ever thank him properly. He is kindred, so dear to me that I would gladly do just about anything he asked. (This is a safe enough bet when you know some one well enough to know they'd never ask for something it would hurt you to give) But lately I've been thinking about it quite a bit because it really begs this question:

How the HELL did this happen?

J and I have never spoken to each other. Our relationship exists entirely in pixels and binary code, in the cyber world (There are a few small exceptions which reside in snail mail so I know that J's handwriting is just like my first boy friends and he knows what I smell like cause I spritzed his birthday card). Yet I have told him that I love him and I mean it. How do you come to love someone to whom you've never spoken? There is a certain purity of thought and expression here on the web. Ease of filtering. You can be what you wanna be, say what you wanna say... but if that were all then I would have a relationship with a heck of a lot more people than I do, here. I've emailed and communicated with lots of people on the net. But none of them are like J. And I'd bet, if you ask him, J will say there's something special about me too.

Summer is coming. And it will mark a few milestones for me. I've had huge changes in the last year. But mainly last summer was when I met one of my very best friends. Maybe this summer I will actually meet him again.

** Do not think for one second that I ever take for granted the fact the I can number my best friends and count them. I am blessed with great love. I honor it by counting everyday and never taking a moment of it for granted.

How I Ended Up Sleeping With TWO Guys Last Night

2005-01-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

Photographic Proof!!

Today J asked me if I've told The Bartender that I am not interested in a serious relationship.

HA!

I've told The Bartender that I am probably very, very bad for him.

"Maybe you didn't have to say quite so much." ventures J.

Well.

I guess. But I felt like I had to say something. I like The Bartender. I really like his son, Little Bartender. Oh my gosh, you guys. This kid is funny. He bites his lip and dances just like daddy... So, I had to say something.

Anyway. The Bartender keeps asking me about Scooter like somehow Scooter is the one he needs to worry about. As though one day I would wake and decide that I want to put it all back together with paranoid, infantile, pain in my ass Scooter.

So, here's what the title up there is all about. The Bartender and Little B came over last night to hang out. We were gonna watch a movie, eat ice cream, try not to laugh too loud and wake the baby (1(a)). But, there's a catch. The Bartender is deathly allergic to cats.

I have a cat.

Not just a regular cat either, but a FLUFFY cat. A friendly FLUFFY cat . She sashays around flinging certain death in the form of dander. So, The Bartender decides to prepare himself for this evening by taking benedryl. A lot of benedryl.

Here's a tip for you cost conscious kids out there. If you are ever a little low on cash and you need some benedryl but the name brand stuff is too pricy you can just pick up some generic sleep aid cause its all the same. Do you see where this goes?

The Bartender got so totally stoned on benedryl that I could not possibly let him drive. He looked at me and said "So what was that thing you said where the worst thing you could ever do was put a baby in the river?" and I knew it was all over.

And that's how I ended up sleeping with two guys. One who snored and was too zonked on antihistamine to even try to put a hand up my shirt and the other who kicked me, quite a bit, but has very small sweet feet so it's ok.

"I Will No Longer FEED Your Leader"

2005-01-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

Number One had an emergency C-section on Martin Luther King day, giving birth to a lovely baby girl -- Who they refuse to call Martin Luther. What the hell? Isn't it fitting that she be named after this great soul who we remember on this day? Picky parents...

Speaking of picky, Number One has refused further antibiotics. She seems to think that a lack of fever and a lack of pain and a lack of any other symptom of infection sorta means she had no infection. The nurses fought with her a little about it. But she's tired of the constant blood drawing, never ending testing. She looked the nurse dead in the eye and said "I will no longer feed your leader."

I almost peed myself laughing at that.

Is it paranoid to think that they take at least half the blood to give to an elite squad of vampire hospital administrators? Well, yeah. It is. But what the heck. I wouldn't want to feed their leader either.

Memory Lanea NEW! & Improved!! Reprise Feature

2005-01-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

I got a comment from a new Loyal Blog Monkey. You gotta know he is in the club now. He mentions reading back a bit... a bit! How many thousands of juicy words has Penny written? So, I took a stroll down memory lane... and I am reprising. Why? Because I can, kids, because I CAN.

I mentioned recently that I started this blog with a list. It was not a commercial list. It was not a list generated in response to a command to generate a list, comprised of pre-written questions and designed to reveal special things about me. It was just a list which came straight from my heart. A list of what was most on my mind. A list of things I hate.

Let me know if you like the reprise feature of the Just Bad Penny blog. As for me... it may seem like a real time saver until you factor in the time spent re-reading everything I've ever written in order to decide what to reprise. But I consider it a small price to pay for the comfort and convenience of you, my Loyal Blog Monkeys.

Read on to wallow in the first Penny Post ever...

Things I HATEa reprise of the first Penny Post EVER!

2005-01-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

those flags that people roll into the windows of their cars. (i do not hate america, but i hate these freaking flags) they drive along looking like a motorcade of some sort, what the hell is that about?
guys that honk or whistle at me when i look like shit. trivializes the honks and whistles when i don't.
passive aggressiveness.
reality tv.
adkins crap.
people who express the opinions of other people but pretend that they are their own.
people who tell the same joke over and over and over but get pissed when you finish it for them.
puking (i hate to puke, you can if you want but leave me out of it)
gophers.
the obsessive compulsive need to make this list 10 and not just stop at 9.

Miss Girly Penny

2005-01-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

My sink is stopped up. The one in the kitchen. It's not my fault, how this happened was a mystery.

Loyal Blog Monkeys know that Number One daughter is hugely pregnant and due at any moment. However, she has not yet cleaned anything. There is some rule that says a pregnant woman must precede labor by a mad cleaning spree. At 11 days over due, Number One has not cleaned a darn thing. She hasn't even wiped at anything.

So, in mortal fear of her remaining pregnant forever I decided that perhaps I could satisfy the rule with a little pre-labor cleaning by proxy. I looked around the house... Hmmmm. "What would I clean if I were hugely pregnant and 11 days over due??"

I'd clean out the fridge.

That fridge is a repository of so many unclaimed and unwanted and unloved-in-the-end containers of left overs. I can clean that out, wipe the shelves, wash up the tupperware (no little r in a circle but you know as well as I do that's a trade mark) and get this labor started!

First I dug it all out. It spanned the counter in a daunting way but I was not afraid. I was gonna just zip right through that. Pry off lids, dump stuff into the disposal... lather, rinse, repeat. I was cooking along, about half way finished when I dumped the Christmas gravy down and the sink mysteriously and without a damn good reason backed up with mucky, greasy water. I have no idea why. It's just contentious I think. Pissy bastard of a sink, who needs you?

The phone rings. So, I have to suppress my tears of frustration. Damn sink. Backing up with out a good reason.

"Hullo?"

"Hey." Its the Bartender. "What are you doing?"

Penny explains the sink. Penny explains the need to lie down on the kitchen floor and just cry. He says

"I'll come over and fix it for you."

That should of made me happy but it didn't. I need to fix the f'in sink by myself. I'll snake it. Or I'll get a wrench and open it up and clean whatever mystery substance clogged it... Mystery Substance. IT WAS NOT MY FAULT!

"No. I'll fix it. You need to go to work. Don't worry about it. It's my problem. I'm the mommy."

So he says this to me "I will call you when I'm off work and if it's still clogged up I'll come over and fix it."

"Just how will you fix it? You might as well just tell me what to do."

"I'm a MAN. We fix stuff. We don't know how we do it, we just do it."

So I say, very quietly, "Whatever."

"This will give you an excuse to ignore it till I call you."

VERY LONG PAUSE HERE.

"Why would I do that?"

His voice has that "well duh" tone "Cause then I'll come over and fix it for you."

And in this moment I have a crystalline second of pure clarity. That's what girls do. They cry weakness, bat their lashes and wait for a man to rescue them. In fact, I saw this idiotic ploy on that TV show, what is it? About the housewives. Some tittering woman with socks and barbies intentionally shoved down her drain and the man on the floor, wrench in hand, come 'round to save her.

Bleck.

As it stands right now the sink is still 2/3rds full of disgusting water and effluent I do not care to describe. And when the phone rings later I will cheerfully report that it is fully repaired, operational, and scrubbed with comet to a sparkling shine. No matter what condition it is actually in. Because I refuse to be that girl.

I just wish I knew what had stopped it up to begin with...

Hello Burger Bandit...

2005-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

I am speaking to you small-ly. I am defeated. My last exam ate my soul... If I come out of this semester on academic probation I will consider myself lucky as probation is as near to the law as I feel likely to get just now.

Number One Daughter is still pregnant. Do you know what it is like to spend your days with a hormonal girl-woman who is 11 days over due and wants to discuss bloody mucus discharge and what it might mean? Plus today she told me this "You're right, mom. The cervix pain is different than the crampy pain."

Um.

I think she thinks that giving birth is gonna be like one bad period. Poor girl. On second thought... Poor Penny.

The LOVE Rhomboid

2005-01-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Metro-Sexual Guy today --just read through everything I've ever written if you need to know who this guy is-- and he said this silly thing to me:

"Hey Penny, for a girl who is not into drama you've sure set yourself up now!"

to which I replied

"What the hell does that mean?"

and he said

"You're in a love triangle..."

We had been talking about My Boy and the Bartender and Scoot who was sitting in the very next room and will not go away no matter how many times I wiggle my nose and click my heels and offer up chickens for sacrifice. MSG was not very good at geometry I guess.

"Triangle? It's more like a love rhomboid." There are 4 sides. Mine: poor sad love sick girl who can not be with The Boy and is tired of crying in the shower. The Boy's: poor sad reality marinated boy with responsibilities beyond the fact that I cry in the shower. Scoot's: poor sad deluded man-child that refuses to open his eyes to even peek at reality or responsibility. & The Bartender: who the hell knows what his poor sadness is...

I started to think a lot about the love aspect of that. Then it occurred to me that "Love Rhomboid" would make a really great band name! Who has ADD now, J? I've been writing songs, designing the band tattoo and working on album concepts all centered around Euclidean geometry. Normally this would be an ok way to kill 7 hours. But I have tests. Starting tomorrow. Tests that will determine if I can go on and be a law school graduate... sit for the bar... be an attorney and eventually be a judge who has to recuse herself every time some yay-hoo points and says "Hey! You're that chick from the Penny Blog!"

Holy Hell loyal Blog Monkeys! I need to learn some law and stop this asinine obsessing over minutiae. The Boy likes to say this to me "It is what it is." or "It'll be what it's gonna be." or "Get your ass over here! I must have you now." Wait. I made that last part up. More ADD wishful thinkin!

My point, and I do have one, is that I need to get a grip. I need to choose my priorities. Plot my course. Set my sails... bleck.

Here's the good news, kids. Rarely do you get fired from your job at The Burger Bandit when some yay-hoo points and says "Hey, you're that chick from the Penny Blog."

You want fries with that?

425 Million THINGS!

2004-12-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

Are people really posting lists of things? Are they really doing this? Who reads these freaking lists and, better question, who gives a rats ass what your favorite flavor of ice cream is?

My first Penny post of was list of 10 things that I hate. Now it's 11. I hate your lists of things. Oh crap. It's 12. I hate those stupid quizzes which tell you what fragrance of shampoo you most resemble (YOU'RE AWAHPUI! No one knows how the hell to pronounce your name, where the hell you came from or what purpose you serve on this earth. Kindly rinse rinse rinse until you're gone gone gone)

Double crap. It's 13. I hate it when people post what the hell Flavor of Gum they are. I know that you are a juicy fruit! I can tell by the way that you write.

14. Photos of your cat/dog.

15. Post written in cat/dog voice (My owner keeps putting the toilet lid down. What does she want? For me to die of thirst!?!)

There are more. Many many more. Why I think I guessed at 425 million and thats probably just about right. But, maybe.... just maybe... I am in a really bad mood today and you should just ignore me.

Yeah that's it.

This Was a DATE

2004-12-28T09:49:00.000-08:00

This time I'm sure it was a date. I got a movie, and dinner (Anything you want) and a birthday present. An actual present in a bag with paper and stuff. An obscenely priced coke from the concession stand. 2 hours of dark movie proximity and laughter. It was really very nice. Only problem is it was not My Boy. (Need a nic-name from this new guy so I'll call him The Bartender)

This is the sorta girl I am. I feel like I'm cheating. How can you cheat on a guy that's married to another girl? How can you cheat on a guy that doesn't even ever take you out anyway? How can you cheat on a guy that isn't even sure from day to day whether or not he'll keep talking to you? But that's how I feel. Like I am two-timing My Boy. And it freaking sucks.

So here's what I got for my birthday from The Bartender. He doesn't know me so well. But he gave me a book. The third collection of Darwin Awards. How well do you need to know Penny to understand that this is good stuff? I LOVE this stuff. Funny and tragic and OMGosh. DING DING. He picked a good book.

There was something else in the bag. It had a chocolate sticker on it, one of those mall shops.

He says "Did you see what else is in the bag?" and I said "Yeah."

And he says "Well, what is it?"

"Chocolate."

"Dude, look in the bag."

I say "Why? It's chocolate. Thank you."

"Just look."

So I look. and its a caramel apple.

Flash back to a conversation between Penny and The Bartender ~~~~~~~~(these are wavy flashback lines) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We're talking on the phone, just shooting the breeze. Random stuff. Jokes. Crap. Laughing. and he says "Do you know what that the greatest edible panty flavor would be?" and I say "ummmm? Cherry?" "Nope. Caramel apple. Someone should invent that sh*t." so I go into detail about how I could construct this panty out of those Wrapples things from the super market and crushed up Jolly Ranchers. "But that'd be crunchy... that's just wrong." We laughed like mad over this. MAD. (Flashing forward) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recall that I say "Why? It's chocolate. Thank you."

"Just look."

So I look. and its a caramel apple. OMGosh. You guys. He gave me a caramel apple.

He says that I intimidate him. Trip him out. Finally I say "Listen, if you are trying to tell me something then you need to just say it." He reminds me so much of my sweet J that I can hardly stand it. He wants to know where he stands, which is weird cause we hardly know each other but he is getting a yellow light which is not red and is not green and maybe I just wanna hang out which is cool cause he really likes to hang out and that's cool but maybe there's the yellow light it could be more than just hanging out and he'd just really like to know cause I intimidate him and he... can not believe he's even said any of this to me.

All of this means "I'd like to kiss you with out getting punched in the nose."

But I can not kiss The Bartender. Cause I am married in my heart to The Boy.

Birthday Penny

2004-12-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

It's my birthday today.

I will not say how old I am but old enough to not feel like ASS just cause its my birthday.

My boy remembered. But how hard is it to remember when you've had the count down going for at least three months?

The guy I am apparently dating now remembers and will be taking my sorry self to a movie.

Scooter remembers. I find a card propped in the bath room this morning. Signed with love. I guess if what he does to me is love then I'm glad he doesn't hate me. That'd be lousy, eh?

Well.

I am gonna get on with it and see what happens from here.

The Microcosm of Online Dating

2004-12-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

My great pal, cyber-boy friend, and project manager (J!) recently got me to join an online dating thingamajigger.

"You're not looking for some guy to marry!' He says. "Meet some people! Get a BOY TOY!!"

I reluctantly agreed. What good is a project manager if you refuse to take their advice? But Oh My GOODNESSSAKESALIVE! This is nutty stuff. First off... Who the hell is on these things anyway? Second off, is it fair for me to think that I am the only sane one? No. There have to be guys that are just like me. Sincere and just not into that bar-club-brothel thing. There have to be right? Statistically? At least one??? That doesn't want me to give them IM sex cause they said I was a "Fine piece of ass."

Travel back in Penny Blog time to the day I told you about Line-backer man. These guys make Line-backer man look like some kind of sexless monk. If I had to struggle with patience for that guy you can imagine my patience with these guys. And what the hell should I be patient for? Do I run the risk of insulting the PERFECT MAN when I insist that we discuss something besides the size of his dick on the first chat?

Does this represent the real world or is the online dating scene reserved for freaks and jerks and hormone marinated boys revved up with anonymous courage? It is all those guys that will not hesitate to grab your ass with both hands cause "You know you like it, baby." Maybe I need that wall of bitchyness. NEED IT. To protect me from the hoard...

Ours is not to question why, though, it is just to do or die. When the project manager says jump I've tried to say "How HIGH!?!" And sometimes I just say "Yes, sir." cause its pretty hot. But really, how much of this should I tolerate before I tell J that his plan sucks and give up? A GOOD project manager would just date me. He could dress up like different guys so I'd feel popular. Wear several hats and talk in various accents. One J-Date could be really forward and get slapped so I can practice that. And another, in a different hat of course, could be sweet and shy. Giving me the opportunity to practice my own forwardness.

There would be the J-Date with money ("Whatever you want Baby, money is no object!") and the J-Date with extra wittiness ("Oh my, Penny, I've never laughed so hard before in my entire life!"). And the J-Date with extra mojo ("Penny, Baby, you are the hottest thing I've ever been within an 18 inch radius of before. Baby.") And the J-Date who is jealous of all the other J-Dates ("You were out with J!?! You're f**king him, aren't you, you evil b*tch!?!")

My point is that I do not really need to meet new people. All I need is for the people I already know to just step it up a notch. How freaking hard is that? If you really loved me you would placate me in my time of need.

This has made perfect sense, trust me I'm a professional ~ I'm Bad Penny

Merry F'in Christmas

2004-12-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

I will not try to sugar coat it. This year sucks.

I bought a real tree. Oh god, I am a tree killer. But I was just too damned weary to drag my fake tree in from the garage and put it together. This requires death defying garage skills. (Men! Men are the garage masters and women should never have to go and risk death to get down the f'in Christmas tree...) So I bought a real tree which is placed not-so-conveniently in the kitchen. Near all the appliances that get hot. What can be more cozy than a nice Christmas fire!?!

I have no money and therefore no money to spend on lavish (or even not so lavish for that matter) gifts for my friends. I love to give gifts to my friends. And I have no time to make gifts. And no patience to give something like a back rub or a kitchen floor scrubbing or what not.

WAH!

This year sucks.

(I am secretly hoping to get analyzed by that psycho-analyst blog thing who remembers the name? Sigmund what's his face and company. I am secretly hoping for that cause I know I need therapy but I CAN NOT FREAKING AFFORD THAT EITHER!)

So here's the Penny update for those of you that are missing little old me.

Number One grandbaby is due in about a week and a half... as is Penny's best effort to write 9 passing law school exam essays. Which will be more painful? Exams.

I think I had a date on Weds. I say think cause it didn't start that way but it ended up seeming a lot like a date once it got going. He opened doors for me. Said things like "Get what ever you want." Was wearing a nice, clean and apparently ironed shirt and smelled pretty damn good. Called me first thing on Thursday to say he had fun. So much fun. Lets do it again. oh yeah. He paid.

Does that sound like a date to you?

You are starting to chuckle I bet. Thinking "Oh but this is Penny! There has to be a catch... She can't just go on a date and say THAT WAS FUN!"

Here's the catch. Actually there are two. Why do things simple when you can muck it up with conflicting levels of conflict, right? First is that this guy I had the "date" with is in a very vulnerable place in his life right now. And I get this sneaking feeling that he is much like my sweet buddy J and his "I am so interested in this girl does she like me?????"-ness right now. Too much pressure.

Then there is this insanity... OMGosh! Can I even admit it? I feel like I am totally doing something wrong because of my thing with My Boy (formerly known as Jackass for all you old friends). This is the level of my monogamy. I feel like I am cheating on the married man that cannot be my boy friend...

So Merry F'in Christmas to you! Hope yours does not suck.

Time to Re-Name the Penny Blog

2004-12-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

Hola Blog Monkeys and Surfers alike!

I am ready to rename the blog. It has been called few things along the way... My Boy calls it "Your Porno-Blog" and I woke myself once, talking in my sleep, fairly sure I was calling it "That colossal waste of time".

Bad Penny - Evil Genius! This thought has crossed my mind a time or two.

But, as I blog along, I have discovered that I am less fractured from my Penny self than I was when I began. I am reading a book which suggests that we all learn to repress parts of ourselves in childhood and that we tend to couple with people who represent this missing part of us. People who somehow "complete" us. This is problematic. It causes great conflict. And it also begs the question... Why did Penny end up married to a looney tune? After all, we are all fairly sure that Penny is outright crazy -- no repressed crazy here.

I would love to hear from YOU! What should I start calling this blog? I actually suggested a name for cyber-sons blog: Dishbreaker Days & Sleepwalker Nights. Go see Jess. Tell him I said HI!

Lay it on me, kids! Hit me with your best shot. And if I laugh hard enough to pee a little then I'll rename the blog and share the leak...

Granny Penny

2004-12-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

I gave a baby shower for Number One daughter today. ACK! I am a granny. Penny is a granny... There are baby clothes, and baby towels and a new baby car seat here. It all screams THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Weep now and then shut the hell up.

If the fact that Number One, an unmarried girly, will give birth 2 months before her 20th birthday does not tell you that I raised her wrong then this oughta do the trick. She came to her baby shower dressed in jeans and an old t-shirt. A faded BLACK t-shirt with fingers giving a peace sign on the front.

Hang on a minute while Penny lays her head down on the desk to rest a bit. Sooooooo sleepy.

OK. Its not the end of the world. It's just a t-shirt and it's just a silly party and it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme. Right? Right!?!

But Penny would of liked a blouse at least. Maybe a dress. Something. Anything but a ratty black t-shirt.

**sigh**

I am gonna do the head on the desk thing for a bit. Get back to you later. Thanks for stopping by. Have some cake, I have a lot of left over cake.

End Of A Poll

2004-12-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

It is the end of my second poll. I have to say that I am a bit surprised. I was pretty sure that the Ass Tat would win.

Penny NEEDS A New Tattoo!

Which is the BEST tattoo for me?
TAT of Sly w/ "Me so Horny" on HIS Ass
46%
24
Tasteful little ass TAT that reads "Me so Horny"
44%
23
Full Back TAT of Sylvester Stallone
10%
5
total votes: 52

Now I have to find someone who is able to artfully render Sly for me. I may have to look all over the world for just the right person to do my tattoo. It may take years of diligent and patient searching and interviewing. I will let you know when I have located the perfect artist. Don't hold your breath though. This could take awhile. Speaking of taking awhile... See my new poll and Please VOTE!

Poochy

2004-12-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

For all those who do not subscribe to Penny Nomenclature I shall now define "Poochy Belly" with out photos:

Not pot belly as that is round and I always thought sorta firm, and not love handles as those go on the sides and why the hell do we call them love handles? Not hairy, like a little dog.

Poochy belly is one that is just a little sticky outie but not a firm sticky outie more like a doughy sticky outie. Kinda puffy, and sorta drippy and not so hot. Not fat. Not enough to change the size you wear but enough not to wanna show it off at parties.

Does that do the trick?

Tomorrow I am back to sits ups, lots of sit ups. And crunches. And maybe some kind of surgery. We'll see.

Project Update

2004-12-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

For those of you that have been around here awhile, you know about The Project. For the new kids I will just say this... all you need to know can be found conveniently in my blog under titles such as "How I Started Taking Naked Pictures of Myself" and "What I Did While in the SHOWER Today". Go read them and discover why my beloved boy calls this my "porno-blog".

Today, while trying my best to cheer up one of my dearest friends, I sent J the IM message "Going to take off all my clothes and get wet and soapy now" (or something substantially similar). J is supposed to laugh, and have a dirty little shower thought about me and respond by saying "You LOVE to tease me, don't you?" but instead he said "Take some pictures."

And that made me think OH YEAH... the project. I mean The Project! What the hell has happened to the project? Truth is I am busy. And I really got a lot of project work done in the beginning (I'd like to thank my super secret Project Manager for making a real difference) and then the project sorta lost its spot in my agenda. And I've been... um what's the word?... LAZY. Not a lot of working out these past few weeks. Got a little poochy belly thing going on right now. Don't want to really preserve that for posterity do I?

But that's really a cop out I think. The mere fact that I am having poochy belly objections to project work is evidence that the work is not yet done. Further more, and this is BIG, kids, everyone I've talked to about the project has gushed about how brave and wise I am. Gushed. Will I have to return all the gushing if I cop out before I am done?

So it is with great trepidation that I now endeavor to set a project goal of some sort. An objective indicator that The Project is complete and is no longer necessary and can be safely stopped, shelved and ended. Something reasonable.

If I only knew what that is...

Made My DAY!

2004-11-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

Go have a look at Motoki!

Here's a bit of a Blog Explosion Experience. When I first started surfing I ran across this blog of a hopelessly small baby, born too early. One of the problems with BE is if you are interested in something you can't just swipe the address or make a link as all of that gets directed to the BE sign in page. It's a pain in the ass. All you can do is blog mark it in BE and go back to it through BE and be a slave to BE.

So call me daft, but I spent a minute this morning getting a good address so I can make you a link so that you can go and see Motoki smile.

My babies were all big. Number 2 was 9 1/4 pounds for crying out loud. I wished I could send this small boy 3 of those pounds, air mail. And so heart broken was I, the day I read he had this horrible brain problem show up on the cat scan. I have spent an inexplicable amount of my time feeling ... STUFF ... for this boy I do not know and will never meet.

So today when I saw the photo of the smile!

Let me just tell you that all my daily whines and rants go pale and surrender to the reality of this little guy. And I was made very happy by that little smile...

Poll Post

2004-11-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

I am really interested in how this poll will turn out. Right now its neck and neck! How come no one wants me to get a full back tat of Sly? I think this one will hang out to 50 votes and then we'll get a new one. Maybe we'll rename this blog...

As long as we're talking I have to tell you guys that I am not looking forward to the holidays. Bah-Humbug. I have a birthday coming up too. and J promised me Las Vegas, party and hookers! But I don't think it'll really turn out that way. Maybe a Vegas post card from J written against the ass of a hooker. That's about all I can expect.

I'm SICK

2004-11-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

That's ill-sick not perverted-sick. ACK! I thought all that hot soapy dish water was protecting me from disease. But apparently I was wrong cause now I have a bug and whine sniffle sob whine some more. I'm SICK!

My Boy offers this, in cyber-space so it's not REAL: jammies, socks, blankets, crappy TV, soup and lock the kids in their rooms. "That's the best part. I'll lock the kids in their rooms and pet you." Yes. Please.

But in the flesh world (J calls it this. Flesh world, flesh girl. I am a non-flesh girl... Which makes me really hot no matter how I look right now) I have to take care of the kids and the laundry and answer the phone when it rings and do the dishes and all that other stuff that you never get a day off from. I'm mommy. That's that.

So my head is pounding and all I really want is quiet and a nap. But I've got a lot of law to read and its against the law to duct tape your kids into shushhhhhh mode. Feel sorry for me. It's all I have left.

Perhaps if I Had JOB I'd Be Worth More

2004-11-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

I'm worth $2,156,941.04! How much are you worth?

Be sure to let me know...

Ten Things I Have to SAY to Those I Live With (& Scoot Who Comes and Goes at Will)

2004-11-21T16:21:00.000-08:00

1. I know that you leave all those dishes for me to wash because having my hands plunged into hot soapy water 5 times a day is what keeps the flu away! Your great love for me grants me this favor. However, I LOVE you all too and wish to share the gift. Do some dishes, it's my pleasure to endow you with some of the disease fighting properties of manual labor.

2. The floor is not a trash can. Magic faeries do not come in the night to collect your crayon bits and snotty Kleen-exs, dried up play doh, dropped noodles, crushed cheese-its, beads, leaves, pebbles and dead bug collections, paper clippings and candy wrappers, ends of granola bars or the parts you clip off the go-gurt tubes.

3. The stainless flatware, that you find clean and placed neatly in the drawer, is not self replicating. In fact, it is rather expensive to replace. Every time you throw a piece away a puppy dies.

4. Shutting doors and windows, wearing long sleeves and socks and not eating popsicles are all better ways of feeling warmer than turning the thermostat to 90.

5. The mere fact that I gave birth to you does not mean that I want you in the bathroom while I pee.

6. YES! There is weather outside and BOY! it is interesting.

7. I did put us on the "New Pet Waiting List" but they wont give us one until all the poop from the ones we have now has been cleaned up properly.

8. Proper Potty order is remove pants, pee, wipe, flush, wash. For those of you that flush first - WRONG. For those of you that fail to flush at all - WRONG. For those of you that hate the flushing mishaps of others - Complaining to me will not fix anything, just flush for a friend and get over it.

9. The refrigerator is not a magic portal to the land of neverending butter and stuff. Once you eat all of a thing it is gone until you buy some more. Yes buy. As in go to the store and exchange for money. Try it! It's fun.

10. I was just a girl before I was mommy. And soon I'll be granny, as well. But in the end I'll be just a girl again. It's not a statement about you, its just how it turns out. Ultimately we are all alone and life is just a trip to a place where we finally realize that and then die.

Of Blogs & Super-Secretness

2004-11-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

As Constant Reader will know, and casual surfer will ignore, I've called my love interest Jackass in this blog. Dude. "Love Interest". I can not even come up with a generic term for him. He's not my husband, or even really my boyfriend (can you have a super secret boyfriend who is married to another girl? I guess you can).

Read back and see the day I suspected he had read this blog. At first I was suffocated! ACK! This is filled with such an avalanche conflicting emotions and confusion and angst and anger. There's stuff in here I would never have told him, but not stuff that I would never have let him know. I just would of candy coated it a little to remove the sting... One of those things is this name I put on him. Jackass. It's not nice. I chose it when I was feeling hurt and manipulated and very much like I did not WANT to like him any longer. There are lots of things I call him. Dork. My Boy. Baby. His actual name. I call him that. I sing it in my head as a happy little song that plays all day long. But here he's been Jackass. Ouch.

So, from now on he's just gonna be My Boy. My Sweet Boy.

My love. My heart.

He's started writing. I told him he should. He is such an island and such a crush of confusing things right now. He needs to sort and order. I sort and order by writing. Oh my gosh! It is like a miracle sometimes how very useful writing is.

So we talked about it. Cause he did read this blog. and it hurt him. and he regrets it. Regrets standing at the threshold and not just walking away from it. He was overcome by that cat-killer: Curiosity.

But you can't unring a bell. and you can't unread a blog.

He's writing one now. His own catharsis. There is something about knowing it will be read. To write with a reader in mind. But not a specific target, like a letter to someone you know, but to you guys The Blog Monkeys! Plus, you can keep your stuff out there in the cyber-sea... adrift and untethered to your My Documents folder. Super-Secret-Safety!

We're talking and he asks "Will you read it?"

"Do you want me to?"

That's a hard one, kids. Maybe he does want me to read it, to find it, to hear the things that he can not just say. But probably not. He's not even sure now, what it is or how useful it will be.

This is me speaking now and just note how logical and wise I am "Will you put it in blog explosion?" He said no. He doesn't really want anyone to read it or comment.

"Well then I will not run across it. I don't push that next blog button."

He asks "If you saw it, if you knew it was mine, would you read it?" I thought for moment about this one. And I gave him the most truthful answer inside me "Nope."

He is impressed, because he read mine. The siren song of looking at my secret places overwhelmed the reasonable man inside him. I go on to explain "It's not that I do not want to know what's there, but if I read it then I would have to pretend that I did not know it. That or confess that I read it. That's too hard to do."

The conclusion is this: If you want me to read it give it to me and I will read it. Otherwise I will leave it alone. Marvel, for a moment, at how filled with maturity and self-control Penny is!

For now.

He's written it. It's out there. He even got a comment from some person who does not know him and certainly does not have the same urge to know all of him that I do. You guys can read it. Just go fishing in the cyber-sea and catch it on your browser hook. Know the things that I do not. Go and see what name he has selected for me. Is it My Love, My Heart? or is it Evil Bitch? Or, god help me, am I not there at all?

That Next Blog button has begun to wink in my dreams. Calling to me. It whispers "Penny. Clink me. I may show you something secret if you do..."

Regular Reader Notification of IMPORTANT Penny Blog Fact

2004-11-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

Hola Blog Monkeys ~

I had to do a little Blog Explosion account tweaking. I have no idea if that will mess with your blog marks or not! It did mess with my rating... I have none. and It did mess with my comments... I have none.

I hope I haven't made life difficult for those of you that dangle on my every word.

This has been an important update ~ I'm Bad Penny

Domestic Penny

2004-11-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

OMG. I am overwhelmed with this desire. You will say "Penny, girl. You are free as a bird. Go get a boy toy and have some fun!" but I'll respond with

I DON'T WANNA!

I feel unsettled and at loose ends. What I really want is to be domesticated. Like a house cat. I will lie around the house, being petted and fed. Maybe sit by the fire. Lay up in his lap. Sleep curled into a cat-nap ball with my cold nose in his neck.

I don't wanna date! I don't wanna get out in the world and look around. I just want to settle myself into a place where I know what comes next. With him.

Funny Stuff!

2004-11-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

Clink that Link! and have a laugh on me.

Another 30 Seconds of Satisfaction

2004-11-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Here comes the 30 second post. Ready, Set, GO!

Can not think a damn thing to say while the seconds tick by in my head. I am not a multi-tasker, can I count the spell check time? OH GOD, I can't what if I typo?? What if I blurt something so private, so personal and I can't take it back then everyone will know like that time I was away at band camp and the counselor thought I had pretty eyes and we went down by the lake that one night, around midnight and he put his hand on my -

OOPS, times up.

Pensive Penny

2004-11-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

I am feeling seriously introspective again... I find the changing moods of this blog very funny. Usually I flow on the tides of Jackass. When all is well with him I am Ms. Funny Penny. When things are screwy I am Angst & Anger Girl.

Today is different, though. Things are fine with him. I am just thinking about the future, and thinking about choices. The process of really choosing things. Some people, and I am not sure if I am one, become paralyzed by choice. There are various levels. You make little choices every day (What socks, what shoes, what cereal, floss?) Most people make these little choices with out difficulty.

Most people.

But if you've ever had kids you know that they have to learn this. They all go through a period where they stand frozen, unable to select from two pairs of shoes. (and we've all seen at least one kid who resolved this by wearing one of each... on the wrong feet) It's like learning to walk. You are supposed to do it when you're small and close to the ground. That way when you screw up there's not that far to fall... Amazingly, some people get stuck here and never are able to make any choice. These people drool a lot more than average but I think they have a certain freedom in zero responsibility for anything at all.

Most of us move on to being able to do the little choices without even thinking ~ Unconscious Competence. Our major skills fall in this category. Stuff like driving, WALKING. When was the last time you saw an adult carefully placing his feet, hands splayed out, consciously walking? That's reserved for babies, drunks and people in physical rehab. For the rest of us its just something we can do.

Then there are the bigger decisions. I made one yesterday. The phone rang and Number Two's school wanted permission to release her name and photo for publication in the newspaper. That's a pretty exciting thing for a 7 year old. But Mom said no. I just sorted the plus factors (How cool!) and the minus factor (Various stranger deviants now know your name, age, school and what you look like!) and came up with the right answer. Decisively made the call. I did not flip a coin.

And at the top, or the bottom depending on your preferred direction of hierarchy, is the HUGE decision. This is where I find myself strung up. And all of the stuff that this implies is so overwhelming that I can hardly sort out the global issues, let alone get into the minutiae.

A lot of it has to do with faith. There are many kinds of faith and I have none of them. Every ounce of serene belief that things will just work out that I have ever experienced has been dragged from me kicking and screaming. Because in my very center I am in charge, ultimate charge, of the universe.

I was married to a boy (yes boy) who never decided anything because he could rest quietly knowing that I would handle it. All of it. I am Marge in Charge. And when shit goes wrong I am the one that takes the heat, gets the shaft, does the time and pays the piper. Everything is always my fault.

Do you know what a crushing weight this responsibility is??

So, right now I am not really making a decision. I am trying to sort out HOW to make a future decision. Clearly I did not decide well with scooter. I don't want the same sorts of forces to drive my decision making in the future... I want to be a careful and considered, intelligent and wise, sure and decisive decision maker. But mostly I want to trust myself, to have enough faith, that I can choose well, that I will choose well, and that I have chosen well.

Afterall, I can't just cook up a poll and let you guys decide everything from now on. That'd be funny.

Jackass "I am ready to leave my wife and be with you. Whadda you say?"

Penny "I'll get back to you in three to five days when the poll results are in."

The End of the LESBO Poll

2004-11-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hola Blog Monkeys & Surfers ~

The poll has passed that 100 mark and it's time to say "Goodbye". Here's the final wrap up:

Penny needs a DATE

Should Penny Give that LESBO thing a shot?
Hell Yes!
69%
70
GOD NO!
31%
31
total votes: 101

Thanks a bunch to everyone who pondered this question with sincerity and love. Hoping to help me in a truly difficult decision. I know you all put a lot of thought into your answers, feeling the crushing responsibility that is structuring the major life choices for other people. Especially for other people you do not even know. You will be gratified to know that in order to truly honor those heartfelt choices you all made for me (Majority RULES! Yeah!) I can only do one thing which is to IGNORE YOU ENTIRELY AND MAKE UP MY OWN MIND.

Now that's out of the way the choice is easy. You guys! I am so straight. Straight as an arrow. Straight as that thing they make super straight lines with... What's that thing?... oh yes, a straight edge.

So we shall usher out the lesbo poll and replace it with the only suggestion I received, compliments of my pal Ms. Lori.

Please Vote.

Multisylabicaliciousness ~ Not The 30 Second POST

2004-11-15T07:47:00.000-08:00

I just read an article titled: Does IM Make U Dum? In it the author suggests that we did not engage in IM abrieviationalisms pre-IM. (I anti-abbreviate sometimes ~ Making words far longer than they really are in an effort to improve my multisylabicaliciousness) To this interesting but nonetheless stupid contention I say this, PSHAW! Or Oh, Poo! Or something equally dismissive.

Who remembers the advent of personalized license plates? I do! And it sure as Sadie predates IM. Think about it. It wasn't on the computer screen but it was directed at others. It wasn't so easily changed so you had to really put a lot of thought into that plate cause it was gonna stand for you in the public view. It was meant to sum you up. It was more like a screen name I guess but it was certainly an arena to hone the abreviational skills.

I knew a chick, in the early 80s, whose plate said TooHip. She was "Too Hip" and she had to go a lot. She communicated this to us all by saying, with brain rending frequency, "Too Hip! Gotta Go!"

Just imagine the moment some intrepid plate "idea man" realized that you could sum up an entire syllable in the number 8! What a great day for the abrieviationalists. We got L8TR, GR8, and D8 (GR82D8!)

I also knew a real estate guy who could not get the plate he wanted so he altered his with colored tape to read Re-Max. (Titter in amusement while picturing this guy changing an IM typo with white-out on the screen. That's funny. Poor stupid bastard)

Also knew a guy with IFiteFir on his plate. I'll give you a sec. HA! It is kinda funny. Fir! The meanings are endless and none of them are clean... BUT what he meant was I Fight Fire. He couldn't get the "e" in there. So he went with fir. and then spent hours standing near his truck to tell passersby that there should be an "e" and he's really a fire fighter, just look at his big yellow boots!

Look around you cyber-friends... They're every where. We have just learned to ignore them. Does IM make U dum? Duh. I know a few folks that were dum already.

P.S. Number One does not find this post so funny. I laughed my ass off. I think it's cause she wasn't there to witness the birth of the vanity plate, to puzzle out the meanings, to feel impressed cause the dude in the car in front of you at the drive-thru (abbrv. in ACTION there) was a HRTDKTR and not a LUVDKTR or 1SXYGRL.

Too Hip! Gotta Go.

30 Seconds of Satisfaction!

2004-11-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

I am attempting to write the Ultimate Blog Explosion Post. It has to have a catchy title (see above), interesting and topical content (see below) and a nice short-ness which lends itself to 30 seconds (maybe 45) and then lets you go on your way.

This is it for today ~

What Penny Had 4 Lunch

Today I had three snack size candy bars (stolen from my helpless children's left over Halloween candy) and a banana.

Next Up! A post written in 30 seconds flat. Sure to be a real crowd pleaser.

This has been a DOSE of satisfaction ~ I'm Bad Penny

Poll-O-Rama (Lama-Ding-Dong)

2004-11-14T14:41:00.000-08:00

Penny's lesbo poll has almost worn out its welcome. So, when that thing reaches a hundred I am gonna 86 it and get a new one. The question is: What should Penny's new poll ask? Should I post a poll asking what to put in the next poll? Or, one step up from that...

What Should Penny's Poll Asking What Should Be in Penny's Poll POLL Ask?

Are you dizzy? I sure am.

So, I'm asking sans poll... What should my next poll be about?

P.S. Have you ever so over used a word that it loses all meaning and becomes completely nonsensical? That just happened to me with poll. In fact, I am at this very moment almost certain that poll is not even a real word. Poll poll poll, meaningless noise.

Confessions of A Bad Penny

2004-11-11T08:17:00.000-08:00

Hola Blog Monkeys & YOU (just surfing by) ~

I have a confession to make. It's kinda tough for me, you know, to admit this stuff and just lay my soul bare for you. Quivering and naked. But the entire point of my Penny Blog (Porno Blog as Jackass calls it) is CATHARSIS. Right? It's got utility.

So I must confess. And I am just slightly ashamed to admit... I mean confess. Oh gosh. This is harder than I thought it would be. I mean I feel pretty close to you right now. I feel like we have something special. It's time to tell you. Sit down.

I've been using you.

Please don't cry. If I'd of known it would end up this way I would never have started but once I got going I just couldn't stop myself. I'm compelled. OK. I'll tell you all the details but I only think you're hurting yourself.

I crack myself up. Sometimes I come back and re-read something I wrote a long time ago and I have a little "Heh, that is FUNNY stuff" moment. I am just cracking myself up, day and night! You, I am soooo sorry to say, are merely incidental. I didn't mean for it to be this way.

It's not that you mean nothing to me. I count on you. And I certainly care for you. But I just need you to know that for the most part this has been all about me. And, when I accidentally blurt out a name while blogging, well... It's always my own.

"Oh PENNY! Make me laugh! (chortle, snort)"

Poll Update

2004-11-10T23:05:00.000-08:00

WOW! I am quite amazed at how many of my loyal Blog Monkeys and random visitors have bothered to cast their votes in my lesbo poll. 47 of you (as of right this moment) think I oughta give Angel a go. 26 say Stay Sane! Come on you guys! What part of lusting after Jackass and all my girly angst gives you the idea that I could just switch teams like that?

On a totally unrelated note, someone asked me to put up a picture of my sex bomb dress. Gosh again guys... I feel so used. I had an email from a guy awhile back asking me to send him some project photos, nice guy don't get me wrong, AND FUNNY! but dude... NO. And the dress request, though slightly less sleazy is getting the same answer. Dude, NO.

The reasons, however, are different. No nakey fresh photos cause that's just private. No sex bomb dress photos cause WHAT THE HELL IF SOMEONE RECOGNIZED ME!?! There goes my bid for the Supreme Court. Hell, there goes my bid for People's Court.

So, I dig it that you guys are looking. And I dig it that you guys are talking back. And I even dig it that you're asking as long as you understand why No means NO. Ok, sure, yes, my eyes are like glistening pools of moon light, limpid moon light. And yes, the night is fragrant and balmy and sweet. And, yeah I'll give you that you did spring for a pretty nice bottle of wine... sure, my mom does seem to like you. Oh, yeah, um... that does feel pretty good. Really? My lips they say no, but my eyes are saying YES YES YES? Oh all right.

What the hell.

It's not like I'm getting any from Angel.

A Thought for Today

2004-11-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire;

it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great."

Thanks, Mom!

2004-11-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

When I was 13 I had a dress my mother hated. (Today I have a similar dress; I call it my Sex-Bomb dress and it's worn to SHOCK & AWE) Mommy Dearest hated my dress in a way that was inexplicable to me.

At the time.

Looking back now I sort of understand it. I did not look like a hooker, exactly, but I looked... what's the right word? ... RIPE. Where'd I get this dress? I think I must of traded something for it. Probably some piece of amazingly expensive jewelry, valuing my own ripeness over gold. So, my mom would take this dress and throw it in the trash can in the garage. (She was very passive aggressive that way) Then I would dig it out of the trash, wash it and put it on. It went like this ~

Sleep
Sneak
Trash
Sneak
Retrieve
Launder
"What do you think you're wearing young lady?!?"
"You DON'T OWN ME!"
Slam

We did this 5 times. I swear. Five times she tossed and 5 times I retrieved. We seemed locked in a battle here. SEEMED. Passive aggressive Mommy Dearest got me on the 6th go round.

Take a wee moment to imagine what she did. Some might think she just took it away. Throw it in some undisclosed trash can. Give it to a friend of hers to dispose of. Make my father take it to work. Good Will. Here's what I'd do NOW; Wear it herself. To my school. (I'm evil but not passive aggressive) Or, perhaps, just insist that her rules were the rules til I went to college and got a job of my own and really understood what it meant to be thought of as Lolita.

She did not do any of these things.

She cut it up. Into tragically misshapen and small pieces that could never be reconstituted. She cut it up and threw it right in that same trash can, right on the top, to assert her superior position. Those pieces looked up at me as if to say "Surrender all hope, you can not win. Missy."

Boy. You gotta know that at the time I was pissed. But looking back (When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all) Looking back I realize the utility of her method. She decided it needed to be gone and it kept turning back up (Just like a BAD PENNY: ironic). Just kept turning back up like that movie monster no one ever kills. She decided not to run screaming from the dress, hide in the closet and hold her breath. Nope, she killed that monster, but good.

Moral of the story? Some times the only way to really be rid of something is to just break it.

Squeaky Girl

2004-11-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

OKAY. This is it. I will whine for one moment and then let it all go.

I MISS MY BOY & I WANT HIM BACK RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT!

Now I am gonna eat some stuff...

Jess!

2004-11-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

Go visit Jess at Life Or Something Like It. I feel kinda crappy. He's linked me. He's praised me with cyber mama love. He's been a pretty good boy, and I've ignored him! What a bitch.

Also, I just suggested a new name for his blog;

Dish Breaker Days & Sleep Walker Nights.

Can you kids think of anything more enticing than asking "So Jess, what's this dish breaker stuff we've heard so much about?"

Herpes & The Perfect Man

2004-11-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

When I first started my Penny blog I wrote a post called "What I Want in a Man". I will not link it now. If you wanna read it just go find it, it's not hidden or anything...

This is a sort of reprise of that. but not really a list. It's an ideal, I guess.

Jackass and I are in "Rules Land" again. That's ok. Some things need to be done 7 or 8 times before you get it right. But I figured we'd have a problem. A jealousy problem. So I tried to divert it to begin with. I can not sit and wait for him, speaking to no one. Hell, I might even venture out on a date. I NEED that.

But I can not get all worried that every time I speak to another guy he will get the idea that I am just peachy keen and have moved right on without him. I can not deal with angry jealous guy.

Which brings me to the ideal. I have a friend who is married. She got married the month after I did. We've been friends since she was 5 and I was 6. In other words, forever. She's had some complaints about her husband. He's a sports guy, not too touchy feely. He's not a cuddler. She's been around when scoot was wedged up my ass and seemed to think that a sniveling boy-man was something to envy. I tried to tell her...

Anyway. Something truly and completely awful happened to her. She got a very mysterious, painful rash. On her genitals. ACK! It was classically herpes. There is more than one variety of this virus. Chicken Pox is herpes. So are some mouth cold sores. and so is shingles. But she's got it on the Sally (See my genital post) and its bad.

I know what would happen in my house if this came up. There would be no question that I was a dirty, filthy, diseased slut. After all these years of honesty and faithfulness, fidelity. I'd just get a knowing look. My heart sunk when she told me. It is bad to have such a loathsome disease. Worse to lose your husband over it.

I asked "What did he say?"

She answered "He said 'I'm not worried about it. I'm sure there's some other explanation.'" End of story. He didn't even pause to contemplate what it might mean, so certain was he that it meant nothing. So certain of her.

I want that. Thanks.

I Need A New Poll

2004-11-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

SEX. I am hetero.

This is crystal clear to me. But Jackass keeps suggesting that I must be at least curious or I wouldn't have put up the poll. I just thought it was pretty funny. Tee-Hee.

Scooter left tonight, with the kids. Walked out and said "Have fun." to me on the way. Wouldn't it be lovely if I was going to have fun? All I am going to do is take a bath and then go to bed and probably cry.

I am waiting for Jackass to call me. So we can talk about how this is no good for us (read - HIM) and how we've (read - He's) made a huge mistake and how he's sorry. Always sorry.

Me, too.

We were talking last week or the week before and I told him this:

"I just want you to be happy."

That is really what I want. How can you love someone and not want that? He told me he would never be happy. So caught in this conflict where being with me ruins his entire life and being without me... It means being without me. I honestly thought that what I really wanted was to figure out how to make him happy.

Yet...

Right now I am contemplating the idea that we reached the end of what we are and he is done with me. Ready to be without me. This should please me since it gives me exactly what I thought I wanted - Happy HIM.

A Request...

2004-11-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

Some one asked me, in my Blog Explosion Post comments, to link this blog:Love or Hate? There you go.

That is possibly the most helpful I have ever been in my entire life, don't get used to it...

Invasion Reprise

2004-11-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Number One is here and I live in the living room... Which begs a few questions. Mainly, what the heck am I gonna do about Christmas? Put a little tree in the kitchen and hang stockings at the foot of my bed, I guess.

My ISP Sucks... & They Don't Care

2004-11-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

I have been woefully disconnected for 9 STINKING DAYS... while my ISP/Phone service provider had evinced a nonchalant disregard for my pain. I will not name names but it rhymes with HORIZON and its initials are V. Yes. Vee. Nuff said.

INVASION!

2004-10-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Life is about to change around here. Number One is moving in. (Quick update for Foreign Visitors = #1 daughter; pregnant; w/ boyfriend; yes Penny's gonna be a granny very soon)

I have been valiantly trying to maintain a certain Zone Of Sanity in my house. There's been a lot going on and I've been basically triageing the round the homestead chores. For instance, I do wash dishes, but I do not trim the hedges. My two little stay-at-home kids are slobs. So, I do bathe them but I do not clean their rooms with the leaf blower.

The line was drawn at the living room. My contention was this ~ You do not need to go in there so STAY THE HECK OUT! All I really wanted was one little spot where I could say to a visitor "Won't you please come in. Sit down. How have you been?" with out adding "Try not to step on that, oh! Don't sit there, let me move that. No that's not still alive I'm sure the kids squashed it yesterday... Are you sure you can't stay? Oh dear, have you had a tetanus booster?"

It was a small dream but you gotta dream, right.

Now I just have to let it all go. I don't live in a hotel. and I am adding 2 and a half more people this weekend. Something had to give and guess what? It's the living room.

I will be moving in there. I am sure the privacy will suffer since I no longer have doors. (I am going to hang drapes which will only provide cover for smallish eavesdroppers) But what the heck does Penny need privacy for anyway? Its not like I have a whole heck of a lot of private stuff going on in my room now. **sigh**

There is one bonus though. I will be rooming with my computer. Jackass thinks this is a fantastic opportunity. The ability to leap out of bed and ... what? IM? E-mail? No, I get it. If I am overtaken, in the night, with an irresistible urge to compute something then I am all set up!

Every rose has it's thorn, kids, but every cloud has it's silver lining...

This has been a Penny's Bed Room Update ~ I'm Bad Penny

small&helpless Penny Womb Wishes

2004-10-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

I am struggling this morning... Not to email Jackass and beg "Please be OKAY with me."

What in the name of all that is good and pure in the world is this all about?

It's a fractured analysis. On the one side I have this crazy notion that I UNDERSTAND things. On the other side I have this hand delivered notion that I never understand anything.

How is it possible that we can both want the same things and yet be so totally out of synch? I have started and aborted at least 15 emails to him. And here I am starting and really thinking ABORT ABORT ABORT! this blog post about the things I wanted to put in the emails to him. I am a stew of not even knowing what I'd like to figure out about what I do not yet understand about me and this and him and why oh why does it go wonky all the time?

I wish I was still drinking, blindly not realizing that getting loaded is a BAD way to deal with unhappiness and confusion. I'd like to travel back to that unexamined place where its just all good and who cares if Penny's drinking a tad more now than usual? Well, as long as we're wishing I guess I'll wish for a trip back to the womb.

"here i float warm and small and not touched by a thing but her nicotine lubdub is the sound beats all around me placenta whooshes like wind through a tree i think nothing but red filtered light and water muffled sound and always warm always safe always not the one who has to decide"

Jackass Update

2004-10-25T23:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are new to the many lands of Penny's angst, you can catch up on Jackass by reading 98% of everything ever written for this blog. Go ahead, the rest of us will wait....

Humming.

Thumb twiddling...

A little surreptitious look around "Anybody peeking?" Some stealth nose picking.

Back? Good... now I can go on.

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!?!

I am not like this with any other person on the planet, this strange non-spoken what in the world does all this mean CODE communication. What the hell is that all about?

Tonight was a train wreck. I miss this man in a visceral way. I have called it like my need for oxygen, the way I need to get squished and just set right by him. Would I choose it? Nope.

You come along with the dessert cart of mate choices: "Would you care for a man tonight? A partner? A corresponding Ying for your Yang?" Penny pauses... Hmmmm? Perhaps I am still far too full of this from my long dark tea time with Scooter. BUT NO! I think I'll just look, see if something catches my eye.

Top of the cart: all single, look tasty! Some men my own age, yum. A few older guys, a couple younger guys, some that are clearly not my idea of dessert. Some I can't afford... but wait. There's the one I want. That one that girl over there has! AK.........

You say "I'm sorry miss but we've given that one to her. She owns it. It's already covered in teeth marks, been dropped on the floor, paid for." I reply, calmly but with an air of dangerousness "PERFECTION. I must have it. No expense is too great, get it for me now or I shall explode and take out your whole damn establishment with me. And that pet shop full of puppies next door. And the old folks home, and the day care, and that place where nuns read to the blind. GIVE ME WHAT I WANT NOW!"

Clearly if I had been given a choice I'd have selected from the cart, kids. But I did not get the choice, I got him. And he is the best thing and the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And he keeps on happening to me every day.

To be perfectly honest with you, which is important cause you're all complete strangers who do not know me or give a hot damn for me (except J who is mad for me, just ask him), I want him to happen to me twice a day.